


Invasion

by kyoeri



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Demons, Demon Hunters, Demonic Possession, Established Relationship, Exorcisms, Fluff and Angst, Gore, Horror, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-05-06 07:03:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14636559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyoeri/pseuds/kyoeri
Summary: Demonologist Sawamura Daichi had been working in the field of demon hunting and dealing with the supernatural for over 9 years; however, with the constant fear of endangering the man he loved with the harrowing elements of his day to day job as well as the lack of time dedicated to him, it was finally time for Daichi to leave the world of darkness behind to prioritize the 3 year relationship he had with a charming university student named Kuroo Tetsurou.Of course, things never went as planned.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Is it me or is there not a lot of horror in the HQ fandom? I mean, I'm no horror expert and I've never really written it, but I thought it'd be fun to try! There's references to religion, just putting it out there in case it makes anyone uncomfortable. I've tried to make it a sort of "general" religion, so like not really mentioning anything specific like Christianity, however since I'm only knowledgeable on Christianity it may lean closer to that side and I did not want to accidentally offend other religions (such as Shinto and Buddhism which are the main religions in Japan) by trying to write about them with only sparse research.  
> Ratings and warning might change, and I'll add chapter specific warnings in the beginning notes. The number of chapters is a estimate, but I'll try stick to 10 if not more. Hope you all enjoy this read :)

“Tell me then,” the student purred beside his face, his skin sheened with the intoxications heat coursing through his body. “You hunt ghosts and shit yeah?”

Daichi moved his gaze to the younger man, his features only just made out under the dim lighting of the bar. There was a certain intensity to those feline eyes; dark and predatory, amber wisps vaguely caught when a strobe flashed past them. His hair was completely unruly, black like the shirt he was wearing that clung to his slender figure. While he spent the last minute analyzing the young student, Daichi only just realized he hadn’t laughed and left Daichi alone after the declaration he was an occult detective. Though Daichi much preferred the term demonologist, he used all sorts of ridiculous titles to scare off kids like the one sitting there expectantly waiting on more elaboration. “You’re still sat here?”

“C’mon, can’t just claim you’re some… yeah whatever and not tell me about it! And you’re hot.” 

“I’m too old for you kid, move along.” While Daichi was admittedly only 25, he still found several years age gaps a little risky to play with. The student didn’t look to be past 20.  

“I’m the one who should be saying I’m too young for you and you’d be pining after me and my youthful naiveness like a creep.” 

The guy was like a piece of gum Daichi stepped on in the street and now he couldn’t get him off his shoe. Daichi looked towards him again, ignoring the fact he was indeed very attractive and charming, his annoying persistence temping Daichi all the much more. 

“You don’t even look that old actually— how would you know I’m too young?”

“You’re a student,” Daichi said, nodding towards the student I.D on the bar counter he used for discounted drinks. “Don’t you have friends to bother instead?”

The bed head craned his neck back to look at another man, one who looked uncanningly like an owl flirting pretty energetically and not to mention awfully with a far more composed young man with dark wavy hair. “Yeah, he’s busy. What you doing here if you’re not looking to get laid?” 

“Getting drunk does not equal to wanting sex.”

He tilted his head, rather endearingly, as though the statement was completely baffling. “Bad day then?”

While Daichi really didn’t feel like exposing his weak side to some very tempting student he definitely  _ did not _ want to fuck to release some steam, he couldn’t help be feel like taking the opportunity to get everything off of his chest. He turned on his stool, dropping his gaze to the student I.D still sat upon the counter and grabbing it with a sigh. His name was Kuroo Tetsurou. Daichi looked up again and those sharp, cunning features he was greeted with initially had softened. Now he really felt like ranting, feeling like this Kuroo person was the first and only person to be willing to listen. “Kuroo,” he said, passing the card to him. “I’m Sawamura Daichi… Daichi is fine.”

Kuroo smiled as he took the I.D from Daichi’s hand. “I’ll pretend I’m well-mannered and stick with Sawamura for now… So, occult what?” 

With a snort, Daichi turned back to his drink and took a swing. “Occult detective, paranormal investigator, demonologist… whatever the hell floats your boat.” It was difficult for Daichi to not slip in occasional side glances to see if Kuroo was still sat there, because it honestly sounded like total nonsense to even Daichi himself. Kuroo however was looking pretty intrigued. “I’m guessing you’re either a believer or I’m just the joke of the week.”

Kuroo shook his head, snickering. “Ghosts and all? Totally, I mean I’ve never really seen anything but it’s always been fascinating to think about. I watch tons of videos on that crap! But religion, nah.”

Turning a blind eye against religion was always a red sign to Daichi, that being one of many reasons so many lost souls were unable to be brought back from a demon’s grasp. However, a lot of the younger generation wasn’t so keen on putting hard faith into something so intangible. “So you believe in ghosts but not in a god?”

“Gods are a total stretch, but ghosts there’s been some pretty believable instances… You’re more likely to catch a glimpse of a ghost than of a superior being who created you and everything to do with this world.” 

He had a point, and Daichi couldn’t blame him and his disbelief. Kuroo had leaned over the counter to speak to the bartender, a tray of shots being presented to them not too long after. While Daichi gaped at the amount, Kuroo already had a little glass held between his fingers, the brim held to his smirking lips. “Shots and then you won’t miss a detail out on your bad day.”

Daichi blinked at him and traded his gaze between the shots and the student. He laughed eventually, picking up a little glass from the tray and clinking it against Kuroo’s. “More like bad year.” 

 

Who knew that drunken, hazy night led to not a one night stand but instead a blackout night of sweet cuddling on Daichi’s sofa with the 19 year old chemistry major student who made Daichi feel anything but an outsider to his own world. Love wasn’t in Daichi’s spectrum of dangerous work and many nights not even spent in his own home, but Kuroo made it work somehow, even 3 years on. 

They bathed under the generous beams reaching through the windows, a soothing wash of warmth pooling over their skins that pressed against each other. With the way the rays hit the amber pools staring at Daichi, it birthed the golden wafts swimming in the antique gaze; Daichi had never seen anything more beautiful. The illuminated honey were shaded beneath the dark fluffiness of those unspoiled lashes, rich and voluminous with life. 

There was a faint dusting of freckles over the bridge of Kuroo’s perked nose, ever so vague and subtle that no one but Daichi had much awareness of them. Considering he was always so close to Kuroo’s face, it was understandable. Daichi was glad he was one of the very few that had to pleasure of knowing the finest details to the most beautiful face he had ever laid his gaze upon. 

Daichi moved a hand up to cup Kuroo’s cheek, who didn’t hesitate in pressing into his touch like a needy cat. Kuroo released some kind of whiney groan, as usual rather distressed it was the morning and he had to wake up. It was one of the rare nights Daichi came home at an acceptable time to allow Kuroo to drift into a dream in his strong arms. Often, Kuroo had to fall asleep alone. 

“You gonna be at home tonight?” Kuroo murmured against Daichi ‘s hand, his eyes slipped shut again from the morning fatigue. 

“Maybe a bit late this time, there’s a kid in pretty bad shape,” he explaining, avoiding looking into Kuroo’s face knowing he’d cause a pang in his own chest. “Iwaizumi and his partner have been struggling for weeks with it, so me and Suga have to get in on the case.”

“Mmm… never one to turn down the worst kind of cases.”

There was the bitterness Daichi expected. “Tetsu, you know—”

“I know, you’re gonna get out  _ soon,” _ he recited, eyelids holding down that eye roll that was all too common with those words. Daichi didn’t blame Kuroo for being irritated, seeing as he had been saying he was going to leave that world behind him for month, however there was always something to draw him back in. 

While Kuroo was never particularly skeptical with Daichi’s work, he was introduced to how dangerous and draining it was when Daichi never came home without another injury or a bad mood, never a night perfectly peaceful as Daichi was only reminded and harrowed by nightmares of souls he failed to save and of contorted faces from hell itself. Kuroo tried the best he could to support Daichi, but like anyone sensible he could see no fix other than to leave the problem behind. 

“When though?” Kuroo asked, sitting up and looking down at Daichi. “You say this literally every day and then you come home like ‘oh wait, there’s another case sorry’— like it isn’t even for me Daichi. That life isn’t good for you and it's only making you miserable.”

“It’s all I know, Tetsurou,” he retorted, sitting up to align his gaze with Kuroo’s. “I’ve done this my whole life and leaving it behind isn’t as easy as you’re making it out to be.”

“I don’t see what you’re even clinging to.”

“There’s people who need people like me! If I left that’s like running away and leaving them under the bus.” 

“There’s plenty of you guys to do the job—”

“Suga would be left without a partner and no one works better with him than I do, if I left so abruptly I’d be putting  _ his  _ life at risk.” 

“Sounds like you’re not leaving at all,” Kuroo snorted mirthlessly.

“Jesus, give me some fucking time! It’s not going to happen overnight!” 

Kuroo flinched at Daichi’s snapping vocals, that seething glare burning down to his heart. A moment passed before Kuroo got up off the bed wordlessly, heading over towards the bathroom with a slam of the door to end the conversation. Daichi hated how most days started and ended with the same argument, but he really believed Kuroo just cared too much. 

With a groan— and a lot of effort, Daichi forced himself off the bed and padded across the carpet to the ensuite, inhaling a generous breath before connecting his knuckles to surface of the bathroom door. Kuroo sure liked to take his time, especially when he was in a mood with Daichi, but eventually the door creaked open. Sure, that unfitting scowl twisting Kuroo’s normally cheery features was not what Daichi wanted to be met with but at least he was met with his face in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” he started, subtly moving his foot against the door for safe measure that Kuroo wouldn’t slam it shut again for the added drama. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“We argue every day.”

“I know.”

“So what are we going to do about it?”

“I’ll quit, for definite. This is the last case, and no more. I promise.” 

Kuroo raised his brow at the declared promise, knowing full well Daichi had never broken a promise. Before, he would only say he would quit the world of supernatural and darkness, but now he was  _ promising. _ It made all the difference. “Pinky?”

The one word to seal the deal, no matter how childish. Daichi raised his pinky finger up, holding his hand towards Kuroo. He was hesitant as though it was the first time he had ever doubted Daichi’s promise keeping, but he soon gave in and linked pinkies. “May I ask again why pinky promises is essential?” 

“Because it is,” Kuroo said simply with a huff. Daichi snickered, knowing he still had a hell of a lot of leftover irritation. Mornings wasn’t Kuroo’s favorite time of the day after all. Kuroo turned back towards Daichi, a cotton bracelet tie balanced on his outstretched index finger. “Lucky charm, sounds like you’ll need it.”

Daichi snorted at the so called lucky charm. Kuroo was convinced that damn ratty thing saved him because he was too busy fiddling around with it while drive it slowed him down just enough to miss a drunk driver crossing over onto his lane before they skidded off the road. True, if he had been paying attention to the road like he was  _ suppose  _ to and going over speed limit like he would have done if he hadn’t been distracted, he would have crashed straight into the rogue driver. Daichi had to give some form of props to the ugly bracelet. “You sure you won’t need it? Might save you with getting the very last doughnut in the café again,” Daichi teased, the curl to his lips stretching further into a grin.

Kuroo shoved him lightly and faced the mirror above the sink again to attempt to flatten the nest on his head. A daily morning routine that never did much, but it apparently didn’t hurt much more than Kuroo’s feelings to try. “Luck isn’t gonna save me from studying today… I need God if anything.”

“Hey, you don’t even believe in the guy.”

“I will if he did my exams for me.”

Daichi gave a ruffle to Kuroo’s hair, earning a squawk off the taller before heading off to make the bed. While Kuroo was muttering obscenities under his breath at his wasted effort on flattening his hair, Daichi let his eyes fall to the bracelet hugging his wrist; Kuroo had bonier wrists so it hung a little looser on him. With a yawn, he grabbed his clothes for the day and threw them on with maximum effort (being minimal in other people’s cases) and brushed his teeth over the bestrewn sink that had all sorts of hair products Kuroo brought in an attempt to fix his hair. They were all trial and error, so none were used on a day to day basis. For that day, Kuroo was working with water and a comb.  

Eventually, with playful nudges as they both attempted to get out the door at the same time, they parted with goodbye kisses and the lingering touch of each of them clinging to each other’s hands. They threw innocent insults down the corridor until both were out of sight from each other’s vision, always leaving a smile graced across their features. Everyday was an argument, but everyday they made it work. Daichi couldn’t smile forever however, knowing he was about to be met with something that would wipe any sense of serenity or happiness off of his face with not even a breeze. 

As usual, he’d mutter to himself: “I fucking hate my job.”

* * *

 The recital of prayers paired with the harrowing screeching that sounded more like a monstrous howl was no more ominous than what Daichi was accustomed to hearing. While he had believed he had become numb to fear while dealing with possessions and coming face to face with malevolent creatures wearing the face of an innocent, there was always a little something tugging inside his chest. Sometimes it hurt, sometimes it felt empty and dark, like a drop on a fair ground ride that provokes the sensation your stomach had raised up your throat or your heart straight up made a journey through the digestive system. Either way, it wasn’t a comfortable feeling. 

“Shut the fuck up! Cunts!” She shrieked, such words pouring from a mouth that never even uttered such obscenities. “You’ll all fucking die, you’ll rot with maggots coming out of your dick holes, shit heads!”

“What a foul mouth,” a buff man with short spiky hair mumbled behind Sugawara’s continuous drone of verses recited. He was called Iwaizumi Hajime, another demonologist with his partner who specialized in exorcisms like Sugawara, Oikawa Tooru. 

Pairs were often matched with one having extensive knowledge on demons, occultist tools and the supernatural plane, while the other was highly trained and authorized in performing exorcisms and often held heavier religious backgrounds than their demonologist counterpart. 

“She’s coming to hell with me… she’ll burn in your failure… ha… I’m taking her with me… fuck you.” 

Daichi taunted the demon by slapping on another seal tag on her forehead, earning that much desired shriek and wail, those vocals becoming more distorted and morphed into something further away from human. Sugawara resisted scowling at Daichi’s found entertainment and never threatened a hitch in his words, drawing closer to the end of the final verse. The girl convulsed and thrashed against the blessed restraints that scolded her tainted skin, those sounds of agony leaving a tangible feeling in the air around them. 

Oikawa stepped into the room, hearing the last few words spoken by Sugawara’s recital. All 4 of them kept their guards up, knowing what came next. “Heads up boys, keep your minds strong.” 

When a demon was banished, it opened a rift for the smallest amount of time. While one demon might be plummeted right to the core of hell, others clawing at the surface of the borders between the planes of existence had the smallest opportunity to latch onto something— or someone who had a wavering mind. Objects weren’t usually something to concerned about as only the highest level demons could latch onto objects without much meaning. For higher level demons to be at the surface was an all too rare occurrence considering they often preyed on easier ways through the borders such as ouija boards or summoning rituals.  

“I condemn you back to hell.”

The girl’s back arched, mouth forced open as an inky matter shot out from the depths of her soul. A sick feeling filled Daichi’s stomach and a chilling sweat broke across his temples as the rift was opened for that flickering moment. He glanced around, seeing the others were tensed too. They all took heavy precautions and had dozens of repellant tags beneath their clothes to protect themselves. It worked the majority of the time, but nothing was ever 100%. Thankfully that time they all appeared unscathered and the distorting screaming had faded, replaced by a soft crying. The girls mother had rushed in promptly, chanting gratitude to the men who just saved her daughter and to the gods who were watching over them. While half of the problem was over and done with, the recovery from a possession was a long, hard journey. No one came out unscarred from something so damaging to the soul and not to mention traumatizing. 

Sugawara had stayed with the mother to explain what they would do next and gave her guidance on how to cope when they weren’t around. Meanwhile, Daichi, Iwaizumi and Oikawa had headed downstairs to gather their barings. Condemning demons back to hell was always exhausting. 

“Thanks for the help, that one was a pain,” Iwaizumi huffed, tapping a cigarette out of the carton. Daichi passed him a lighter. 

“Like a leech,” Oikawa snickered, though without humor. “Hope the kid turns out okay later on though.”

“Kids are usually the stronger ones,” Daichi hummed, placing a cigarette against his lips to light it.

“We’ll come and visit her often, see if she’s doing well.”

Daichi nodded at Iwaizumi and shifted on his foot. “This… was my last case by the way.”

The two looked on at him, clearly dubious at the declaration. Oikawa was first to speak. “What, quitting?”

“Yeah, it’s getting in the way of my life outside of… you know, demon hunting.” 

“If it’s your choice, go ahead,” Iwaizumi shrugged. “If it’s your boyfriend’s, then rethink. He needs to accept what you do someday—”

“He already has accepted. But I can never give him what he needs because I’m too dedicated to this,” Daichi retorted. “It’s unfair and it’s bringing us both down. I can’t let this take away the only good thing going for me right now.”

Silence filled the space for only seconds, yet it felt like minutes. “Alright, alright. Suga knows?” Iwaizumi asked. 

“Yeah, I’ve been talking about it with him for a while now… I’m just worried about him having a new partner.”

“Suga clicks with everyone, you know that,” Oikawa assured. “Sure, you’re the best with him, but his nature allows others to fit in too.”

“Would anyone go to the extents Daichi would to protect him though?” Iwaizumi mumbled almost bitterly, unintentionally causing a raft of uncertainty within Daichi. “I mean— Suga could handle himself, but you’ve always been the best backup.”

Clearly Iwaizumi wasn’t so keen on Daichi quitting so abruptly. He already formed a kind of detest towards Kuroo without even meeting him. While he was satisfied Daichi was happier than ever, he didn’t like the changes associated with it. They were all a team after all, and any member leaving formed an unmendable rift in their circle. 

Sugawara soon joined them, wiping away the sweat beaded up on his face. They switched subjects onto everyday things and what was going to happen with the child, avoiding Daichi’s departure as much as they could. Sugawara mentioned he would like to meet Kuroo again, which while Daichi had no problem with Sugawara and Kuroo together considering the two got along well, he was more worried about letting Iwaizumi near him. Oikawa was always eager to meet new boyfriends, girlfriends and whatnot and hating being the last to know things as usual. Daichi settled the suggestion of letting them all meet Kuroo with a “maybe”, and managed to slip away and take off back to his car. 3 years sounded like a long time to keep his love life low key from his friendship group, but Daichi wanted to keep Kuroo as far away from that dark area of his life as possible, even the people associated with it. 

In the car, Daichi stared down at the bracelet Kuroo lent him. Ugly as ever, but it really felt like a lucky charm. That day went smoother than ever, Daichi feeling like he didn’t sprout another early grey for once. He traced his finger over the soft cotton material, lips twitching into a soft smile. He slipped his phone from his pocket, hitting Kuroo’s name at the top of the list of most called contacts. It wasn’t surprising to hear that familiar whine of despair and exhaustion instead of the standard hello.  

“C’mon Tetsu, I’m sure you’re not having that awful of a time.”

_ “I am,”  _ he groaned into the phone.  _ “I’m hungry, I’m tired, I wanna sleep, I miss you, I miss cuddles—” _

“Needy aren’t you,” Daichi chuckled. “Hey, so I’m heading to the institute to sign my leaving notice.”  

Kuroo didn’t say anything for a solid minute before it sounded like he released a breath.  _ “Really?” _

“I promised, didn’t I?”

_ “Yeah but I didn’t think it’d be that quick! Like… you were making out that case was some kinda intense shit that would take weeks!” _

“I think this ugly bracelet of yours worked,” he mentioned absently, looking over his wrist again.

_ “Ugly? You’re the one who got it for me!” _

Indeed he did, but he only got it because it matched the rest of Kuroo’s usually indolent attire that was comparable to a homeless person’s range of limited outfits. Kuroo did have the potential to dress nicely, however the many exam periods each year had trained him to simply stay in his sleep wear and put minimal if not zero effort into his appearance. Student stress wasn’t a joke. “What can I say, it matched the rest of you,” Daichi jeered, meaning no ill intent other than to rile Kuroo up. 

_ “Ouch Daichi,”  _ Kuroo whined, vocals going a tone higher in offence.  _ “Go date someone prettier.”  _

Daichi laughed and shook his head to himself, the stretch of his lips lingering across his features. “You’re the most beautiful thing in my life, Tetsurou.” 

Even when Kuroo didn’t speak, Daichi could still practically hear him grin.  _ “Don’t play with my feelings like that Dai! You can’t just go from mean to nice and now you’re probably gonna be mean again.” _

“I’m not! I’m being serious!”

_ “Nooo too late, I’m already hurt, bye asshole.”  _

A total feign of hurt, as confirmed by the split moment Daichi caught Kuroo’s laugh before he cut off the line. With the turn of the key he started the engine and made his way back home, stopping by a shop to grab a few ingredients to cook something up for the both of them and also as as settling score that he wouldn’t be depriving Kuroo of attention any longer. Daichi couldn’t see anyone else sticking by him for as long as Kuroo did, even when Daichi had failed to be by Kuroo’s side at his lowest points more often than not. It would take a lot more than sorry to make that up, but Daichi was prepared to give the world to Kuroo. 

 

Soon, Daichi reached home. It was a simple little detached house that was only recently built a few years ago. It wasn’t particularly large enough to be called a family home, despite having 3 bedrooms that was turned into a storage room and study room for Kuroo and Daichi. The size was perfect for a couple however. Daichi brought the house solely for the fact it was located closely to everything essential. It had quite the simple modern interior, the furniture not being anything too bold yet not particularly bland either. It was rather under-furnished before Kuroo moved in because Daichi didn’t really care about having more than one chair at the table or livening up the home with various picture frames and useless decorations. It was fair to say in a sense, when Kuroo came, life came along with him. Daichi never searched for a relationship, a mix of fearing them coming too close to the dark reality of what he dealt with and simply having no time to commit, but nevertheless he was glad Kuroo was persistent enough to change his mindset. 

While some may question how a demonologist was able to pay for a house, Daichi found no difficulty in it at all. Having written several books to aid fellow paranormal investigators and the institution and private commissioners paying for his and Sugawara’s assistance in hauntings, cleansings and investigations, Daichi actually earned a little higher than an average salary. Kuroo worked part time in a bar to help Daichi pay the bills (and to simply have money to spend on getting drunk and impulsive buying like any student did), despite Daichi telling him countless times he didn’t need to do that, but Kuroo always said he wanted to be as involved with their home as Daichi was. 

Kuroo’s car was already parked in their double driveway on the side of the house, and out of habit Daichi walked over to check the doors; of course, he forgot to lock his car again. Daichi shook his head and headed for the front door, shouting out an announcement he was home to see the familiar disarrayed dark strands pop around one of the corners of the house in the indirect summoning. Daichi smiled at him and dropped his bag by the door. 

“Tetsu, you left you car open again.”

“Shit.” He stepped out from the main room, the sound of a T.V show playing in the background and their cat named Hime sitting perfectly comfortably in Kuroo’s arms. She was a little black cat, a rather affectionate little thing. She did have her asshole days however, like most cats. Kuroo adored her, sometimes even more than he did with Daichi. Hime mewed in his cradle, head butting his hand as he went to stroke her. “Look how cute she is.”

“Uh-huh, I still prefer dogs,” Daichi mumbled, a clear taunt. He grinned when Kuroo’s glare flicked up towards him. With a laugh Daichi stepped towards him, linking his arms around Kuroo’s slender waist and staring up into the amber stare. 

“Is it cold down there? I doubt you'd be able to reach where the hot air raised to.” 

The height jokes were old, but undeniably never failed to wind Daichi up. His eyebrow twitched and his smirk laid hard on his tight lips. “Keep talking lanky asshole, I wonder who’d be the victor of arm wrestling? These skinny little chopsticks don’t look so promising.” Daichi wrapped a firm grasp over Kuroo’s arm, which was indeed skinny enough for him to almost wrap his whole hand around it. While Kuroo did have muscle, it often leaned far on the lean side, especially when Kuroo neglected working out and following a diet to pack more muscle on.

Kuroo squirmed out of Daichi’s grasp and stuck his tongue out, holding Hime closer to his chest as though to signal he was just going to date her instead from then on. He let her down on the floor and moved back towards Daichi. “So, what did I tell you about only the best lucky charm ever?”

“Yeah, maybe coincidence today just went well,” Daichi said with a roll to his eyes. He loosened the tie around his wrist and held it towards Kuroo. “Give me your hand.”

Kuroo reached out his hand, watching absently as Daichi adjusted the cotton bracelet around his bony wrist. He fiddled with it for a little while and soon transitioned his actions into holding Kuroo’s hand with both of his. Kuroo looked up, expression falling lax and soft. “You’re cute, Dai.” 

Daichi reached up to trace Kuroo’s face with his fingers, working down to his jawline before moving backup to intertwined his fingers within his hair. Kuroo really was comparable to a cat, moving into Daichi’s touch with his eyes slipping shut from serenity. Soon Kuroo moved his hand up to rest on Daichi’s and he opened his eyes. 

“Would it bold of me to assume you’re coming to bed with me tonight?”

Daichi laughed and leaned into Kuroo, pressing his lips against his. He pulled away with a smile. “Not at all.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning: Referenced past child abuse**

With a tilt to his head, Kuroo watched in incredulity as Hime was backed in a corner on top of the kitchen counter staring Kuroo down pretty menacingly. Her shoulders were hunched, ears laid back flat against her head and her tail down on the counter surface. She wouldn’t shift her gaze from Kuroo, and he tested it by moving across the kitchen to witness her jaden glare fixated on him from one side to the other. The sound that rumbled in the base of her throat was low and almost threatening when Kuroo attempted to get close, an occurrence that literally never happened in the past. 

“Hey Dai,” Kuroo called through the doorway, hearing the distant hum from the other. “Think something’s up with Hime.” 

“What’s she done?” 

“Acting like she hates me. It’s kinda breaking my heart.” 

Daichi’s laughter followed through into the kitchen, his newspaper rattling noisily as he folded it to set it down on the table. He kissed his lips at Hime with his hand outstretched, provoking the small cat to look at him. Her pupils were still blown right over the entire visible surface of her eyes but she looked like she wanted to go to Daichi. Out of curiosity, Kuroo moved away from Daichi; Hime ran straight past Daichi and out the kitchen. 

“What the fuck,” Kuroo muttered, dragging his fingers through his hair. “The hell did I do?!”

“She’s having a moody day, nothing you can do about it,” Daichi shrugged, smirking at Kuroo’s visible distress of being hated by his beloved cat. 

“Aw man, but she never hates me. She’s being weird.”

Daichi looked through the doorway to realize Hime was completely out of sight. She must have ran upstairs or something. While he did find her behaviour towards Kuroo a little odd, she was a cat after all. They had a tendency to have the worst mood swings. “She’ll come crawling back to you later when she’s hungry or something, relax.” 

Out of a nervous habit, Kuroo turned to chewing his nails. He never chewed them enough to make them bleed or anything, but it was still a pretty gross habit nonetheless.

“Stop that Tetsu.”

“I can’t believe she hates me.”

“Still on that?” Daichi asked, underestimating Kuroo’s range of offense when it came to Hime refusing to come near him. “Worry about your studies instead, she’ll come around.”

Kuroo sat down in front of his revision notes for a total of 3 minutes before his head was already on the table and he was complaining with incoherent words of distress. Daichi sighed, putting down his mug of coffee and reaching over the table to ruffle Kuroo’s hair.

“Alright, get up. We’ll go out and get lunch.” When Kuroo didn’t raise his head like an alarmed dog hearing the word food, Daichi furrowed his brows. “Tetsu?” 

“I haven’t revised all week and I have a practise exam in 2 days.”

“I’ve seen you revising, what are you on about?”

“No you’ve seen me on my laptop  _ supposedly  _ revising. I was just watching cat videos.” 

Daichi’s palm reached his face faster than he could even register what Kuroo admitted. “Tetsurou!” 

He raised his head, looking as guilty as he should have felt. “I know! I suck, I don’t deserve lunch.” 

With a groan, Daichi brought both his hands up to lean his chin against as he stared at Kuroo. Eventually, he released a breath and stood from his seat with the chair legs rattling against the grey wooden flooring. “Get up, we’re getting lunch. When we get back you have to revise and you’re doing it in front of me.” To be honest, Daichi was really starting to feel like a dad at that point, but someone had to keep Kuroo in line. 

The vibrant grin that stretched across Kuroo’s face was nothing short of warming, an expression that won Daichi over time and time again. It was likely the reason Kuroo often got away with more shit that he should have done, but Daichi couldn’t help being the one wrapped around his finger when Kuroo was being irresistibly adorable.

The two made their way to their usual café that presented a menu of deep cravings from a greasy english breakfast to diabetes risk sweet crepes. Kuroo was in the sweet tooth mood and went with a raspberry and nutella crepe while Daichi settled with a panini. It felt like a lifetime ago since they were able to sit down together like that and go on lunch dates, talk freely without Daichi getting a call to whisk him away from Kuroo for only the 1000th time in a singular week. He was still getting calls, but he shut them off without a care in the world with the confidence he had left the life behind. He still had some business to attend to at the institution regarding some newly authorized exorcists looking for advice, but that was about as far as Daichi’s now old job would go. 

“Right… so my acquaintan— friends are having a sort of goodbye gathering for me, which I didn’t really agree to but anyway we’re all going out to the bar tomorrow night. You’re invited because they want to meet you.” 

Kuroo arched an eyebrow, a smirk threatening the corners of his lips. “You have friends other than Suga?” 

“Funny,” Daichi snorted, rolling his eyes. “They’re not as easy to get along with, I warn you that. But it’s been 3 years and they won’t stop asking, so that’ll be the first and probably last time you have to deal with them.”

“The amount of confidence you have in your so called friends amuses me,” Kuroo snickered. “Bet they hate me for stealing you away huh.”

Funnily enough, Kuroo didn’t sound the least bit guilty for that, and in fact sounded rather conceited. “Maybe just one is a little sour, but the guy has a permanent scowl on his face anyway, whether he hates or likes someone you’d never tell the difference.” 

Kuroo laughed, bringing a wafting glass of latte up to his lips to take a sip. “I guess that gives me an allowance to bring protection!”

“Am I not good enough protection?”

_ “Extra _ protection,” Kuroo corrected himself. “Bokuto looks for any excuse to go out drinking, let me bring him so I won’t be the total odd one out.”

Bokuto, that one hell of a loud guy Kuroo was close with since middle school. Prior to Kuroo living with Daichi, he roomed with Bokuto within the university’s campus dorm rooms. Daichi often found the star volleyball player a little overwhelming, but he was no doubt a pleasure to be around with his liveliness, not to mention he brought out Kuroo’s  _ extra  _ silly side which was as endearing as ever. “Go ahead, but please try and act like the sane and sensible human you are without him. Don’t drink yourself half dead.”

“That’s only possible…  _ without  _ him.” 

“I’m starting to believe he’s a bad influence.”

“Alright, Dad.” 

“I’m revoking Bokuto privileges.” 

Kuroo threw a hand to his gaping mouth, a feign of shock with a laugh tugging on the corners of his mouth to break the act sooner than intended. He released a breathy laugh and reached for his latte. As his fingers connected with the glass, an almost inaudible crack caused Kuroo to flinch away, his gaze catching the milky line trailing down the long glass. He tilted his head and moved closer to inspect it. “Shit. I didn’t know latte glasses could crack.”

Daichi reached over the table to pick the glass up, noting the visible crack. “Latte isn’t even hot enough to crack glass…” 

With a shrug, Kuroo grabbed the glass back off of Daichi and took a final swing to finish the end of his drink off, avoiding the area that cracked incase it cut his lips. Daichi watched on tight lipped, feeling something indescribable within the depths of his stomach. For some reason, he felt on edge and antsy. There wasn’t the familiar sense of a dark, malevolent entity nearby to cause it however, which was how he often could tell the difference between someone mentally ill and a literal demon. He shook his head to himself softly and awaited Kuroo to finish off before they made their way back home. 

The day continued on with Kuroo getting on with his revising as promised, Daichi having enough confidence to not need to watch him do so. Kuroo was a smart guy, Daichi knew that from day one. Whether or not he revised a month before an exam or even a day before an exam, he always aced the papers like it wasn’t a big deal— at least it looked like it wasn’t a big deal until Daichi started living with Kuroo. With stress came Kuroo’s downfall, and it was safe to say it was painful watching Kuroo torture himself over getting everything right and perfect. 

Nightfall came and Daichi was already settled into bed. He took the recommended dose of sleeping medication to knock him out like a rock as without he would be fidgeting and turning all night, likely disturbing Kuroo along with himself. Often he got nightmares, but the sleeping pills did the trick of knocking him straight out into a dreamless sleep. Not too long later Kuroo joined Daichi, already curled up and clinging onto Daichi like a pillow as he shifted around for 10 minutes before getting comfortable. The position they were in wouldn’t last throughout the night however, as Kuroo always ended up moving into his signature position of clutching his two pillows to either side of his head. No wonder his hair was completely unmanageable. 

With Kuroo in the crook of his arm and the T.V playing almost inaudible in the background, Daichi began to feel the medication kicking in rather rapidly and his eyes grew unbearably heavier with each passing moment. 

“I love this,” Kuroo mumbled into Daichi’s chest, his fingers tracing along his firm, ripped stomach. He really enjoyed touching Daichi’s abs. “You’re so comfy…”

“Mmm…” was as much as Daichi could manage at that point, vision already enveloped in darkness. “G’nigh’…”

Kuroo looked up, seeing Daichi’s face had gone lax and he already began snoring softly. He snickered and rested his head back onto Daichi’s chest, absently watching the news playing on the quiet T.V. “Boring old man.” 

It wasn’t too long before before Kuroo was met with darkness too.

* * *

 

_ “…oes… this… fe… familiar?”  _

With a jerk, Kuroo awakened with his eyes unadjusted to the pitch darkness before him and his ears vaguely ringing. His mind was sluggish and groggy, limbs feeling stiff and awareness at its minimum. It felt as though he was having a strange dream, yet he couldn’t recollect what happened. It was almost as though there was something touching him, though ever so gently it was like a soft breeze against his skin. Kuroo’s eyes began to involuntarily slip shut again, a gushing sound filling his ears as his mind travelled down a blind void. When a harsh hiss zipped beside his ear, he shot up with a sharp gasp. Instinctively, he looked towards Daichi to pinpoint the blame on someone, but he was knocked out cold like he was every night. While he could have made the sound in his sleep, it sounded far too close to Kuroo’s ear to be Daichi— not to mention it was on the opposite side from where Daichi was. 

Feeling an array of uneasiness and alertness, Kuroo didn’t feel tired anymore. His gaze lingered on Daichi a little longer before he settled back against the headboard. With nothing but silence accompanying Kuroo, he decided he should just try to get to sleep again, but a distant sound of thumping along the landing outside of the room startled him again. That was  _ definitely  _ the sound of someone walking, the steps too heavy to be the cat.   __

Keeping his eyes trained on the door, Kuroo reached out to Daichi and shook him. “Dai,” he hissed, attempting to make minimal sound. “Daichi…” 

Daichi didn’t even groan, his breaths remaining even and dozing. Kuroo kissed his teeth and decided if he died from an intruder, he’d just haunt Daichi for revenge. He heaved himself out of bed and stepped towards the door cautiously, however Kuroo stopped short at the heavy 3 knocks he was met with. For a moment he thought he was just dreaming, and for the next moment Kuroo was overwhelmed by crushing fear. A foul, putrid smell filled Kuroo’s senses, something almost sulphuric and grotesque. He almost gagged initially before he covered his face with a hand, backing away hastily away from the door until his legs hit the bed and he tumbled back onto it. 

Part of Kuroo was waiting for something else completely questionable to happen but the sensible side to him forced him to just bury himself under the covers and snuggle closer to Daichi who was completely unaware of what happened. He didn’t really want to fall back asleep, but nothing else provoked his senses to keep him awake and the exhaustion eventually overwhelmed him.  

* * *

 

It was already past noon and Kuroo was still flat out asleep. Daichi had woken up feeling refreshed and with Kuroo’s face completely pressed into his back as if he couldn’t get any damn closer. While it was adorable, Daichi left Kuroo to sleep longer seeing as it was the weekend and Kuroo had done plenty of studying the day before. He glanced at the time and thought it was a little odd Kuroo hadn’t woken himself up yet considering his body clock always forced him awake at around 10 AM maximum regardless of his short temper at any hour within the morning. 

Daichi made a cup of tea to soothe the nightmare he was about to be met with before making his way up the stairs, cooing Kuroo’s name while he was a fair distance in a hope it’d help coax him gently out of his dream world. It didn’t work however, Kuroo still curled up with his back facing the door and lacking pillows either side of his head. Daichi moved closer and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Tetsu, come on you can’t sleep all day…” 

“‘m so tired…” he grumbled, voice heavily muffled behind the covers over his face. 

Daichi snickered, shaking his shoulder a little more. “I’ve made tea for you, you don’t want it to get cold now.” He leaned over to cuddle Kuroo, nuzzling his face into Kuroo’s neck to earn that much expected response of giggling and whining. Daichi stood back up and tugged on Kuroo’s arms to turn him over, but his eyes caught on the heavy discoloration of pinks and purples around Kuroo’s forearm. “What’d you do to your arm? It’s bruised pretty bad.” 

He shrugged, mumbling something incoherent. Daichi grew a little concerned as he inspected it, but nonetheless let it go and settled Kuroo’s arm back down. He leaned over to kiss him again, gripping his chin between his fingers to shake Kuroo’s head. 

“Up now sleepy head, it’s nearly 1.” Daichi turned Kuroo onto his back and brushed his fringe out of his face, taking a moment to adore the innocence Kuroo was indeed capable of. His thumb traced over where a scar jagged the skin along the sparse tail of Kuroo’s eyebrow. The initial story was that Kuroo simply fell on his face, but 2 years into their relationship Kuroo admitted it was actually his dad smashing a bottle in his face when he was 6. It was lucky it didn’t blind him, but he still needed reading glasses as a shard damaged his right eye in the assault. While Kuroo avoided speaking much of his abusive father, Daichi gathered enough to form a seething hatred against the vile, evil piece of shit. His mother was no better and never stepped up against the violence, even if she didn’t hit Kuroo herself. She was a bystander who watched on silently in fear she would be hurt instead, placing her own safety before her own child’s. Daichi was glad Kuroo was away from the danger, but being away didn’t mean all the wounds were healed from the many tormenting years Kuroo had suffered with the very people who was meant to protect him. 

Kuroo had built himself up strong and became everything good and genuine that his parents never were, allowing himself to heal by being surrounded by positive energy and supportive friends despite going through several rough patches in the process. There were often days he’d still flinch when Daichi moved that little bit too abruptly or a dream would leave him regressed into his scared child self weeping and hyperventilating all night. A lot of those nights Daichi wasn’t there to comfort him, and that was what Daichi regretted the most. 

He caressed Kuroo’s face tenderly, planting many chaste kisses to rouse him from his drowsy state. Daichi suspected Kuroo was enjoying the extra attention he was getting and was simply refusing to wake up so he’d get more of it. He tested that by moving away in a threat to leave the room— at long last, Kuroo got up in a panic. 

“Don’t leave! I was enjoying that,” Kuroo whined, reaching out towards Daichi. 

“Get up and you’ll get more off it,” Daichi chuckled, turning away. “Don’t you wanna go to that carnival thing later before we head to the bar?”

“What carniva— oh shit yeah, Bo was talking about that. He was going with Akaashi.”

“Wanna go for some beer and vomit inducing rides and pray we don’t run into them?”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Kuroo snickered, swinging his legs off the bed. He rubbed his eyes and groaned. “I feel so shitty.”

“Shitty how? Sick?”

“No… I dunno, just so tired.” Daichi frowned as Kuroo did look exhausted as though he didn’t sleep at all. Kuroo brought his head back up, expression alight again. “Oh yeah! I had the weirdest night— or dream? I can’t tell…”

Daichi hummed absently in a prompt for him to continue as he attempted to tidy some clothes off of the bedroom carpet. 

“Yeah so… shit, I don’t even remember— oh yeah, someone was knocking on the door.”

“Front door?”

“Nooo like this door,” he said, gesturing towards their bedroom door. “And something smelled like total shit, like something fucking died.” 

Daichi laughed. “You sure you weren’t dreaming?”

“I dunno, probably.”

A chill crawled down Daichi’s nape as he thought a little harder about it. He turned to Kuroo, curiosity on his tongue. “What’d it smell like?”

“Like shit?”

“Details Tetsurou.”

“Shit should be elborant enough,” he shrugged and averted his gaze, barely catching Daichi’s glare. Kuroo huffed and thought for a while, his mind fuzzy from the last night. The smell was rotten and eye watering, and it reminded him of a particular chemical stench he had memorized since a while ago in class. “A little like a sulphur compound— sewage, rotten eggs and road kill all in one basically.” 

Daichi felt himself stiffen and his throat clench up on itself. That was more or less the perfect description of a smell he was very accustomed to smelling around victims of demonic attacks. The only difference there however was that he couldn’t feel the presence of anything threatening, not to mention he had the house completely protected with repel tags behind just about every picture frame and under every plant pot. Call it a sixth sense or simply a trained sense in locating malicious entities, but Daichi’s little gift never failed him. Many people in the paranormal spectrum of work had similar senses such as Sugawara and Oikawa which greatly aided them in determining whether what they were dealing with was paranormal or a deteriorated mental stability. “Do you smell it now?”

“No,” Kuroo answered simply, tilting his head at Daichi. “What’s wrong?”

“Tell me if you smell it again,” he urged, voice tense and firm. “Got it?”

Kuroo snorted. “Maybe Hime just brought in a dead rat.” 

“I hope so,” he muttered just below hearing level so that Kuroo didn’t catch it. “Get yourself dressed and eat something, we’re going to that carnival.” 

 

In time, Kuroo finally arrived downstairs looking rather disgruntled for being awake. He didn’t have so much of an appetite and only munched on a few pocky sticks as he dragged his feet across the kitchen. Daichi assumed his mood would pick back up once they got to the carnival and the mackerel on sticks would slap a grin across his face. Hime was sat on the counter as Kuroo traipsed across the kitchen, yet again looking visibly alerted and distressed at Kuroo’s presence. Out of habit, he reached out to stroke her chest and was caught off guard as she hissed and clawed at his wrist.

Kuroo withdrew his hand away from her. “Ow Hime! What the fuck?” 

She mewed lowly, pupils blown and fur stood up along her hunched spine. Hime was looking for an escape around Kuroo but was pretty terrified at taking any route that involved running past him. Kuroo brought his wrist up to his mouth and suck on where she scratched him, the vivid red beginning to trail down his arm. 

Daichi stood from his seat and hurried towards Hime, grabbing her by the tuff at her neck to get her out the room. While very noisy and squirmy, Daichi managed to shoo her out without matching claw marks to Kuroo. He arrived back in the kitchen and went straight to grab Kuroo’s arm. “Fuck, you okay?”

“It’s a scratch—”

“She’s never scratched you,” he blurted, looking at the vicious attack up Kuroo’s wrist. It wasn’t the typically shallow cat scratch one got where cats were simply being assholes or stretching their claws out and happened to catch on their owner’s skin; that one was pure ill intent. “We’re getting rid of her.”

“No!” Kuroo’s expression of mockful shock over Daichi’s concern at a cat scratch was wiped away and replaced with fear. “Please don’t, she’s never mean.”

“She’s mean lately!”

“It’s just the first time! It’s a cat Daichi, she’s bound to want to kill us some day.”

“This is why we should have gotten a dog.” 

“Dogs cause waaay more injuries with how excited they get,” Kuroo reasoned. “They’re cute but I love Hime more.” 

“I think your love’s a little one sided.”

“Shut up,” Kuroo muttered, clearly bitter as he tugged his arm out of Daichi’s grip. When he faced the sink, he felt his right ear seem to deafen as though he had gotten water in it, a dull ache radiated from behind his eye into his temple accompanying it. Kuroo raised a hand to press on his temple, resisting a hiss as the throb grew annoyingly painful. He glanced up to the window, catching the vague reflection of a prodigious, dark indistinct figure stood right beside him and he whipped his head around to look behind. Daichi stared at him, eyebrow raised.

“You okay?” He asked suspiciously.

“Uh-huh,” Kuroo managed, reluctantly turning back to the sink. He stole a curious glance towards the window again, however everything looked normal and the reflection was clear. The pain had watered down, reducing to a shallow throb within his eye socket. Kuroo rubbed his eye and turned the tap on, rinsing the blood from his wrist before getting ready to go to the carnival.

* * *

 

With the weather looking dreary and threatening to spill, waterproof attire was the go to for the majority of people attending the vibrant and lively carnival. Though the sky was vapid, the vivid lanterns of crimsons and cerise mirrored off of the glossy concrete where the rain fell during the day. Laughter and a drone of conversation filled the air healthily, the occasional jump scare of attenders running past with the traditional mask of an oni or fox. Sometimes the masks were more tame and were of a simple cat or even a blank visage. 

Daichi and Kuroo had stopped by multiple stalls to either gaze at fascinating objects they would never buy or actually buy the fascinating objects they had no room for in the house— the latter mainly due to Kuroo’s unrelenting pleading. Kuroo eventually got the promised mackerel Daichi tempted him with and a winsome smile gracing the cat’s features was awarded to Daichi, but by dumb luck they soon landed in the line of sight of a particular owl.   

“Hey hey hey!” 

“Oh my god, keep your head down—” Kuroo’s laughable escape plan wouldn’t have worked out anyway seeing as Bokuto literally sprinted through the sea of people to get to him and Daichi. Akaashi could barely keep up and he muttered apologies to about 5 people Bokuto bumped into. 

“Kuroo bro! You didn’t say you were gonna be here?! Oh hey Sawamura!” 

Kuroo forced a smile, his fatigue rendering his usual tolerance to Bokuto’s lively and not to mention stentorian nature. He did love the guy, but that day he was on short fuses. “Hey Bo, yeah thought we’d just pop here to look around briefly before heading to the bar. You’re still coming right?”

“Of course! Akaashi can’t make it though, he’s off to see his mom today!”

“Aw shame.” Kuroo nodded and smiled towards Akaashi who eventually approached them, briefly greeting him before turning his attention back to Bokuto. “Where you guys headed now?”

“Beer tent! You two coming right?”

“Daichi wanted to uh… go on that first,” Kuroo said gesturing with his head towards a sickenly fast spinning ride. Daichi looked rather alarmed at the statement, failing to recall when he suggested going on the ride.

“What—”

“I mean, you two wanna come on it with us? It’s four seater!” 

Daichi honestly failed to see Kuroo’s goal there in whether he was trying to get rid of Bokuto or trying to make them all sick. Perhaps the latter. “Yeah, we’re going on the ride, you guys should join us,” Daichi said.

Bokuto nodded eagerly, tugging on Akaashi’s arm. “Great! I mean we just ate loads of crepes but it’s cool I’ve got a pretty solid stomach.”

“Are you sure?” Kuroo taunted. 

“C’mon, real question is whether  _ you’re _ sure,” Bokuto pushed back with a smirk. “Who threw up their entire lunch after that one ride—”

“It was the food, not the ride,” Kuroo defended, eyebrow twitching. “Who spewed on some little kid after spinning teacups?”

“None of it got on the kid!”

“It  _ all  _ got on the kid. It was all yellow and clumpy too… Shit, his mom’s face—”

“Alright you two,” Daichi interjected, placing a hand on Kuroo’s chest to back him off of Bokuto. It was all harmless of course, but they would be stood there all night if Bokuto and Kuroo were left freely to challenge each other on pointless and dumb crap. “Rides about to end, wanna get on it now?”

“Yes,” they both declared in unison. Akaashi and Daichi shared a look before shaking their heads. 

“All the beer on you throwing up first,” Bokuto muttered under his breath, Kuroo miracuously catching his muffled words.

“You’re on.” 

 

While Kuroo was first to start gagging at the air, Bokuto was first to spill some juice with Kuroo following soon after. It was settled that day that neither of them could handle spinning, though it wasn’t helpful that Bokuto and Kuroo were left in charge of the wheel to only spin themselves silly in an attempt to cause the other to spew first. Akaashi’s complexion was almost comparable to a little green yet he held himself together well while Daichi was left with a banging headache and the need to empty his guts; he wasn’t going to do that in front of Bokuto and Kuroo however, knowing he would be unwillingly dragged into their childish competitions in the future. 

Daichi had met Bokuto and Akaashi on a number of occasions, ranging from Bokuto simply missing Kuroo and vise versa to nights out for birthdays and other meaningless excuses to get drunk. The latter the less often as Daichi wasn’t so keen on getting drunk with a bunch of students, but the odd time here and there he didn’t mind unwinding after a stressful week. Daichi’s first thought of Bokuto was a bad influence. Whenever Kuroo was going to spend the night with the owl it almost always certainly led to Kuroo being drunk off his mind and one drink away from being in hospital. Akaashi on the other hand was far more sensible and easier to get along with due to his calm and collected demeanor contrary to Bokuto’s boisterous and lively personality. 

There was no hiding what Daichi’s career consisted of as Kuroo was quick to let the  _ fascinating  _ job role slip, but Daichi didn’t care so much. Of course, much like anyone, Bokuto and Akaashi were very skeptical and incredulous at the claim of hunting demons and sending them back to hell, but soon began to trust the strange man Kuroo was head over heels for. After all, Kuroo was happy, and that’s all they cared about.    

“How’s the ghost killing going Sawamura?” 

Clearly, Bokuto missed the choked snort from Kuroo and the expression of total loss of will to live off of Akaashi as he waited eagerly for an reply. Daichi refrained from groan and gave his best smile. “As well as ever… not so much of a hard job considering ghosts tend to be already dead.” 

“He doesn’t even deal with ghosts, dumbass,” Kuroo muttered, a wry smirk twisting his lips. 

Akaashi raised his eyebrows. “That’s what you’re calling him a dumbass over?”

“Fuck! I meant demons, assholes! Wait, I thought demons and ghosts were the same thing?”

“Ghosts are dead things,” Kuroo said matter-of-factly. “Demons are… um…” He looked towards Daichi who shifted on his seat before clearing his throat.

“Malevolent spirits that are the furthest thing from human, basically.” Daichi was convinced anything he had to say about the paranormal would go over their heads, but if they asked he’d tell no problem. 

“Can’t be that bad if you could take them out all the time!” Bokuto encouraged. 

“Lower class demons are the ones who tend to make it to this plane more often… so yeah, they aren’t so bad most the time.” Though that last demon was rather problematic, definitely edging onto the higher class side. Although all demons are powerful, Daichi had never had to deal with the truly heinously powerful demons that often ended in having to kill the vessel instead of trying to free them. 

“Is it dangerous?” Akaashi asked, genuinely curious despite his borderline belief leaning more on the solid evidence side of life. He mostly engaged in those conversations to appear polite, but Daichi would honestly prefer it if he straight up said he thought it was bullshit; it wouldn’t offend Daichi.  

Kuroo looked a little uncomfortable at the question, no doubt so as the point of his and Daichi’s arguments revolved around the danger of his work. “It can be, I suppose.” Daichi looked beside him and noticed Kuroo kneading his eyeball almost inside out. “Itchy eye?”

“Hurts,” he mumbled, not easing up on his self inflicted attack to his own eye. “Yeah I dunno how this is helping.” 

“Making it worse if anything,” Daichi snorted, tugging Kuroo’s hand away from his face. “Maybe drinking isn’t the best thing if you’ve got a headache.”

“It’ll go away!” Bokuto exclaimed. “Suck it up bro, we’re getting drunk as fuck tonight—”   

“If you come back too drunk you’re sleeping outside,” Akaashi mentioned. “You snore like a fucking animal when you’re drunk.”

_ “Sensibly _ drunk,” he corrected, grinning unperturbed. 

Daichi passed Kuroo some painkillers he habitually carried around in his pockets due to his own stress headaches and prompted him to take them with a gentle nudge. Kuroo gave a brief thanks before swallowing them dry and getting back to his racketing conversation with Bokuto. They spent another hour at the beer tent before the sky was dimming considerably and Daichi mentioned they better get back to freshen up before meeting his friends. Bokuto said he’d come over later once he was ready and took off with Akaashi back to Akaashi’s apartment.

* * *

 

Kuroo meandered towards the bar with Bokuto, eyes trained onto Daichi’s friends. The one with ash blonde hair was easily recognizable, even beneath the deep blues and occasional flashes of fluorescence; Sugawara he had gotten along with well, despite the other being rather scary and overprotective when it came it Daichi. Initially, he was hounding Daichi for dating a student, and then it wasn’t long before he started hissing threats beneath his soothing voice whenever he spoke to Kuroo, clearly afraid Kuroo would be some kind of bad influence. Kuroo only  _ looked  _ like someone who would be up to no good, but honestly cat videos and hot drinks kept him happy in life, alongside the beautiful man he managed to score. 

For a while, he stood a little idly as the music drummed around him, the bartender shooting a few glances towards him as he was unsure whether Kuroo actually strolled over for a drink or not. Bokuto eventually took it upon himself to order the drinks before turning to Kuroo, trading his gaze between Kuroo and Daichi’s group who were talking among themselves. 

“You ever meet those guys before?” Bokuto asked, brows furrowed. 

“Sugawara, the angel looking guy, yeah. He’s cool.”

“Why are you avoiding them then?” 

Kuroo jolted at the question, a little too lost in his world to realize he was strategically maneuvering around their line of sight. Daichi had already turned and realized Kuroo and Bokuto had wandered off somewhere before he got the chance to introduce them. Kuroo leaned towards Bokuto, face close to his to get the words in clearer. “They’re a little scary. I can basically smell them judging me.”

“Who the hell would ever have anything bad to say about you?!” Bokuto’s voice went several pitches higher at the suggestion anyone would chat shit about his best bro. “Why’d you think that?”

“I’m miles younger,” Kuroo sighed. “Okay, maybe only like 6 years but I’m basically a kid to them. They probably think I’m too immature for Daichi.”

“If someone ain’t immature they’re too old to even be breathing,” Bokuto declared, scowling at the group. “Get what you mean though, I’m getting weird vibes from them. Hey is that demon hunting shit even legit?”

Kuroo laughed. “They’re demonologists… Well Sugawara is an exorcist I think— but anyway, yeah. They make heavy income too so what’s there to complain about?” 

“I dunno, it all sounds pretty… much.” Bokuto was always a little irresolute about Daichi, but upon hearing Kuroo’s discomfort for Daichi’s circle he began to feel protective and felt the need to express his own concerns. “Are you sure he’s safe? What if he goes psycho one day and thinks you’re a demon and tries to— I dunno, pull some crazy shit on you?!” 

“Daichi isn’t a psycho,” Kuroo groaned, resting his elbows back onto the bar counter as he watched party goers.  

“You know there’s tons of stories how so called exorcists kill people they believe are possessed and shit by pretty much torturing the devil out of them. What the hell?” 

“There’s also stories how repetable doctors murder their patients or create their illness for the hell of it,” Kuroo reasoned, tilting his head towards Bokuto with his eyebrows raised. “There’s stories for everything.” 

Before Bokuto had space to argue, Daichi was already in front of them. “Uh, you okay? You kind of just bolted.” 

“What— yeah! I just grabbing a drink… uh, what do you fancy?”

“You’re worried about meet them,” Daichi deadpanned, his stare of indifference boring into Kuroo. 

“Of course not, why would I be?” Kuroo flapped his hand in front of Daichi’s face, pulling a mocking grin. The stretch to his lips soon watered down as Kuroo felt increased discomfort piling up on him as the seconds passed. He couldn’t refrain from glancing to the side frequently as though to check there was no one staring point-blank into his face— because that’s what it felt like. 

Daichi squinted his eyes at him, glancing towards Bokuto who also noticed Kuroo’s fidgeting. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he blurted, forcing himself to look in one direction. Daichi’s face was normally calming enough, but he still felt ansty and on edge. Kuroo cleared his throat and gestured his head towards Daichi’s friends. “Let’s go then, show of your most prized possession.”

“Hah,” Daichi snorted. 

Bokuto and Kuroo followed Daichi’s lead towards the booth not too far off of the bar counter. Bokuto was quick to introduce himself while Kuroo kept his lips clasped around the straw placed in his cup of a vodka mix, sipping profusely in an attempt to give himself a reason for not talking. Daichi wasn’t approving of his tactics however, giving him a stare down before taking it upon himself to state that the bedhead already drinking himself silly was his mystery boyfriend.  

Kuroo found Oikawa to be friendly with the vague hint he wasn’t all sunshine. In fact, he was almost annoying. There were a few others Kuroo barely caught the name of, one being called something like Ushijima, another with bleached hair being called Terushima. Next up was Iwaizumi who really gave Kuroo the chills. He was stern— sterner than Daichi, refusing to give even a feigned smile to ease Kuroo and Bokuto into the group. Kuroo was certain that Iwaizumi already hated him, but he normally wouldn’t give a shit. All too abruptly, Kuroo felt painfully self-conscious. 

The handshake with the beefily shaped demonologist was almost like Kuroo’s fingers were being broken under the pressure, those slate green eyes locking onto him like he was Iwaizumi’s fucking prey or something. 

“Nice to meet you, Kuroo,” he said, vocals rumbled in the lower notes. Kuroo winced at the sound and struggled to show any appreciation for being introduced to Daichi’s friends.

“It sure is.” Kuroo couldn’t stop himself from challenging Iwaizumi, but 2 seconds into that plan he already regretted it. “—nice to meet you too.” 

During the small trade of greetings, Bokuto had shifted closer to Kuroo to give Iwaizumi a stare down, clearly sensing his friend’s discomfort. Thankfully, Bokuto knew when to keep his mouth shut however. 

Miraculously, the entire night did not only consist of Kuroo sweating profusely and wanting to run back home every 2 minutes and he connected fairly well with especially Oikawa and Terushima. Perhaps he misjudged how much he was drinking, his attention entirely focussed on winning over Daichi’s friends and downing any drink that was placed in his hand by supposedly either Bokuto, Terushima or Oikawa seeing as the others were a little most restrictive on how much they drank or encouraged others. 

“Me and Bo have been friends since middle school actually,” Kuroo explained, taking a swing from his drink. 

“We didn’t go to the same high school but we vowed to be together again and picked the same university!” Bokuto’s cheeks were deeply flushed a rosy hue from intoxication, his words beginning to slur and his rambling even more so hasty and disarrayed. Kuroo didn’t think he was at that stage yet, but then again one could never tell how drunk they were on their own accord.

“Friends for life huh,” Sugawara smiled. “Kuroo does chemistry, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh, been a fan of the subject since I found out science was a thing.”  

“A science guy,” Iwaizumi snorted mirthlessly. “And you’re dating a demonologist.”

Kuroo felt his eyebrow twitch and Daichi tensed next to him. Before anyone had the chance to catch on properly to Iwaizumi’s direct comment, Kuroo smirked at him. “Yeah, that’s true. But I believe you’re mixing up chemistry with quantum physics.” 

That hit a nerve, judging by the guy’s scowl. Kuroo felt a surge of satisfaction at the silent reaction and he almost felt like adding fuel to the fire before he stopped himself. The majority of the group didn’t catch the flares of tension between him and Iwaizumi, but Daichi and Sugawara caught the whole thing. He shifted on his seat, feeling a little cold despite the alcohol initially overheating him. Kuroo excused himself to the bathroom to avoid a mouthful of Daichi telling him something along the lines of acting civil at least. 

With the music drumming dully behind the enclosed toilet room, Kuroo finally could hear his own blood gushing through his ears and register the seething pain radiating behind his right eye and temple again. The headache quaked a harsh wave of nausea and he almost tripped on the way to a cubicle before he heaved into the toilet bowl with violent retching. As his gasped with laboured breaths into the grungy toilet bowl, the singular light overhead the cubicle buzzed noisily, darkness surrounding Kuroo several times before he realized it wasn’t just his hindered eyesight failing him. Kuroo craned his neck up, eyes squinting to fleet away from the harsh flickering. 

With a groan, Kuroo dropped his head back down as he felt his stomach was yet to be settled. His temple pounded against his skull almost agonizingly, the ache leaving dark and colorful splashes all in one within his vision. He body chilled like it did earlier, no sense of warmth or comfort and only the bitter stab of the cold overwhelming his skin. The familiar rotten smell soon accompanied him and Kuroo gagged on the first whiff alone. As he emptied his guts into the toilet, he almost didn’t register the grip clenching to the back of his head. Finding he couldn’t lift his head up— let alone even twitch his fingers, Kuroo held his breath, gaze wide staring down at his bodily contents while he mulled over what the hell he should be thinking at that moment as he was becoming increasingly more disorientated. A hot, stenched breath tickled and smoldered his nape, a distant sound of a rattling croak reaching his drowned ears. The grip tightened on the back of his head and Kuroo winced, unable to make any sound of his own as another foreign touch moved over the right side of his face. Kuroo forced his eyes to move, only seeing black where the unwelcomed touch ventured over his eye, and he was certain it wasn’t the usual case of his fringe blocking his eyesight. It felt like his energy was being drained rapidly, his eyelids slipping shut as though they were filled with lead that very moment. Even when his eyes were still just that tiny bit cracked open, Kuroo only saw darkness. 

 

“Oi, you dead in there?”

Color returned to Kuroo’s vision far to abruptly for the rest of his senses to catch up. He almost gasped as he felt like he just held his breath for a solid 5 minutes with his shirt now stuck to his body with the bucket amount of sweat he just produced. Kuroo shivered, limbs feeling stiff and fingers ridden to numbness. He couldn’t recognize the voice that sounded too far away, his throat having closed up.

Heavy bangs on that flimsy as hell cubicle door jump started Kuroo’s sense of awareness again, however he couldn’t bring himself to stand. He mumbled an apology and mentioned he’d be out soon, but quite frankly he couldn’t even understand his own words. 

“Drank too much? Well, anyway just wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything, it’s just a habit I have with outsiders.” 

Oh, it was Iwaizumi. “‘s okay. Uh… tell Daichi ‘m gonna head home.” Kuroo couldn’t tell how badly he was slurring his words, but it was slurred enough to register he was barely understandable even to his own ears. 

“On your own?”

Kuroo didn’t really think through too much about how he was going to make it home, but the only coherent though going through his hazy mind at that point was to simply get into bed and pass out. “I’ll get a cab or something.” 

While his pulse still drummed in his ears and whining ring blared piercingly on his right side, Kuroo still caught the sound of a clearing throat just vaguely behind the door. “Alright, feel better soon.” 

The hinges of the heavy door wailed as Iwaizumi supposedly left Kuroo alone and Kuroo felt himself sink against the toilet again. He reckoned he would straight up pass out with his hair dipped in revolting toilet water at that rate so he forced his legs— however numb they were— to move. There was an indescribable weight pushing down on him, as though he was attempting to stand while lifting a far heavier person than himself up on his back. However, it strangely didn’t feel physical. It felt like the pressure was sourcing from straight under his skin, like his insides were clenching up painfully at the forced movement. Kuroo wobbled on his feet and it took every ounce of his energy to not fall back to the (disgusting) floor again. When he opened the cubicle door, Kuroo was met with the almost pleasant surprise if he hadn’t just felt his heart go through his intestines at the startling sight of Daichi stood there. Strange, he didn’t even hear the door open, and even stranger how the words coming from Daichi’s mouth was dulled out so heavily Kuroo didn’t catch a single word of it. 

“What?”

“… Right, you’re not okay. You’re pale as hell.” Daichi grasped Kuroo’s arms and pulled him out of the cubicle, careful to not cause him to trip over his own feel. “Iwaizumi got me, said you sounded like you were dying.”

Kuroo almost spluttered a chuckle past his lips. “Dramatic guy isn’t he.” 

“Let’s get home, I’ll make you hot chocolate if you want.”

“Don’t you want to stay? I can get home fine.”

“I’d rather look after you, dumb cat.”

“If you’re gonna be my sexy nurse please maintain professionalism and refrain from insulting me—” Kuroo was swiftly cut off with a jab to the ribs, Daichi pulling a laughable expression of horror when he realized he just attacked a sick man. 

“Fuck— sorry, it’s a habit.”

“Daichi you’re so mean!” 

 

Despite being on the worse for the wear side, Kuroo never lost his ability to tease Daichi to the point he contemplated just leaving Kuroo on the sidewalk and hoping someone would eventually pick him up. Nevertheless, they gave brief farewells to the others before grabbing a cab back to their home, Kuroo already dragging himself up the stairs insisting he didn’t need Daichi to baby him and that he honestly didn’t even feel that bad. The initial probably near death state Kuroo felt like he was in had mellowed and left him just feeling a little disconnected and sleepy, his energy and enthusiasm yet to return.  

As promised, Daichi took care of Kuroo despite the proclaims that he was fine and just was a little tired, but Kuroo couldn’t deny that being looked after Daichi was probably one of the best things to live for. The buzz from the alcohol was barely there, only the vague spin in his surroundings as he settled down on the bed. 

With playful nudges and sweet whispers, things in the bedroom escalated far quicker than either of them planned. The two would naturally drift closer and closer together without initial intent, and Daichi would mumble something against Kuroo’s neck that he wasn’t really sick and he plotted everything to just get Daichi back home early to mess around. Clearly he couldn’t be too annoyed if his hands were grasping at Kuroo’s hips and his teeth were brushing against the delicate surface of his throat. Kuroo clenched at Daichi’s short hair, pushing his head further into his own face to deepen their ardor kiss, Daichi’s hand having slipped into Kuroo’s with their fingers threaded together. Daichi’s thumb slipped at the waist band of Kuroo’s boxer briefs and an icy wave rolled over Kuroo’s skin, the familiar sense he felt back at the bar grasping onto his consciousness. He turned his head to the side, watching the door ajar to the pitch dark corridor, a desperate feeling that there was someone there. 

“Dai…” he mumbled, any sense of lust and elation previously felt washed away. Daichi’s hand moved over Kuroo’s stomach, face still buried in the crook of Kuroo’s shoulder as he kissed him.

“Hmm…?” Daichi crooned against Kuroo’s skin.

“I uh… got a headache.” It wasn’t a total lie, Kuroo really did have that nuisance of a headache he’s had all day.    

Daichi raised his head and looked down at Kuroo. Kuroo bit his lip and brace himself, feeling a little anxious whether he just pissed off Daichi, but the other simply leaned down and pressed his lips against Kuroo’s. “That’s fine, babe. Sorry, I knew you weren’t feeling well and…”

“I thought I initiated it,” Kuroo chuckled.

“Oh yeah, of course you did with the way you look at me all the time; it’s hard to control myself” Daichi huffed, rolling off of Kuroo. “Such a tease.” 

Kuroo caught Daichi’s subtle side glance with his lips tugging at the corners. “How do I look at you? Like this?” He demonstrated with probably his creepiest expression to date, tongue running along his lips and his small eyebrows wiggling at Daichi. 

“That one, for sure. It turns me on so much.” Daichi put a hand over Kuroo’s face, muffling the other’s laughs as he pushed him away playfully. He reached an arm up behind his head to rest on and his other arm outstretched for Kuroo to lie on as the two of them settled down and gazed at the ceiling. “I never realized what I was missing out on… being like this all the time with you.”

Kuroo rolled his head to the side to look at Daichi. “What?”

“I’ve missed out on so much of us, you know? Just lying here with you like this we barely even did because I came home late and you were already asleep every time. I’m so sorry, Tetsu. It must have been lonely.” Since putting an end to his on field demonologist work since a week ago, Daichi had almost been overwhelmed with the powerful warmth and security he felt like never before when he was always so close with Kuroo without interruptions. 

“What’s with you getting all sentimental?” Kuroo laughed, nuzzling his face into Daichi’s neck before looking back at the ceiling. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I came into your life before you were anywhere close to being prepared to leave everything you knew behind.”

Daichi stared at Kuroo adoringly, realizing Kuroo was the only light in his life and without him he would still be only seeing the dark. “I would have never been prepared without you to give me that push, so thank you for coming into my life.”

“And back then you wanted me to just get lost… Aren’t you lucky I’m stubborn with guys I have a huge crush on.”

“More like aren’t you lucky you’re so pretty and I couldn’t resist you.”

“And charming,” Kuroo added with a toothy grin. 

“And annoying.”

“Now you’re being mean, old man.”

“Take that back.”

“No. Nice greying over here—”

“Goodnight.”

Kuroo threw his head back as he cackled to himself, chest heaving with the laughter’s convulsions. Daichi stole another glance towards him before turning over, a gentle smile shaping his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I say I'm going to write horror but my fluff feels are overtaking me at the moment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating went with a big jump from teen to explicit, whoops.

Nearing to the two hour mark of another dragging lecture, Kuroo had gone from irresistibly nodding to straight up sleeping with his eyes more or less open; it appeared that he was simply staring blankly at his laptop screen while failing to take any useful notes. Being leaned on his hand the entire time, his wrist eventually began to cramp up horribly which forced him to shift his position for the first time in an hour. Maybe if they were in the lab doing practical work Kuroo would have had more of a chance to stay awake, but listening to the tedious drone of his lecturer’s voice merely buzzing past his ears was a no go. 

Kuroo had been struggling to sleep his full cycle for the past couple of nights, the cause either being bizarre dreams that forced him awake before the sun met the sky or hearing sounds, feeling touches or smelling foul stenches every now and then. On more than one occasion he seriously considered downing the entire bottle of Daichi’s sleeping medication as the lack of sleep was almost driving him insane. 

Beside him, Daishou was snickering at perhaps his own joke that Kuroo (thankfully) completely missed. He hummed in distant acknowledgment and glanced down to his fingers, noticed his nails were rimmed with sore, peeling skin and dried blood paired with cracks down the middle of an odd few. Kuroo never noticed himself biting them until he began to taste metal. He made a note to himself to cover them in band-aids to stop himself from chewing anymore. It was strange, he never had a serious nail biting issue that made them that ugly, and if he was honest he wasn’t even that badly stressed out about university for it trigger any gross habits such as that. 

That continuous, dull ache thumbing behind his eye made a particularly notable pang, drawing Kuroo’s hand up to press his eye in as a futile attempt to distract his nerves from the main source of pain from behind. The headache had been going on for days too, some days worse than others, but lately it was almost unbearable with the fact it never went away anymore. Painkillers were useless, even when Kuroo took far too many over the recommended dose recklessly in his bouts of desperation.

“You know, you kinda look like shit,” Daishou muttered beside him, leaning in close so the lecturer wouldn’t catch the hushed voices blatantly distracted from his teaching.

“Still a whole stage better looking that you’ll ever be,” Kuroo remarked, lacking the smirk to go with his words.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Daishou straightened up and pouted. “What’s up then, spill it.”

“What?”

“You not sleeping or something?”

Kuroo had to hold his mouth to obscure that ugly snort from slipping out too audibly. “Aw Daishou, almost sounds like you give a shit.”

“I care if you leave me in this god forsaken class on my own because you end up dead or something dumb.”

“What would I die from?”

“Being ugly.”

“Right, guess you’re coming to the other side with me then.”

Whatever Daishou had to say back to that, Kuroo didn’t hear it. What was once only a vague ring now blared painfully in his ears, his vision having a blackout for that flicker of a moment. It wasn’t just a pitch void however, but the image may as well been with how dark it seemed. Kuroo could only just make out the indistinct shapes forming perhaps facial features, but it was far too brief and too dark to manage to even think about alongside the seethe of pain through his skull.  

Daishou watched Kuroo hiss against his teeth as his fists clenched to his unruly hair, body tensed and eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Man, I think you should just go home. Sleep it off for a few days, I don’t wanna be catching whatever the fuck you’ve got.”

When Kuroo managed to open his eyes again, the colors of his vision only bled into each other, forming nothing more than an incoherent smear. He nodded a reply to Daishou, the words failing to form past his lips. Class only lasted for another treacherous 20 minutes that felt more like another 4 hours in Kuroo’s state of nearing agony, but as the time reached he dragged himself back to his car to head home and denied a lift from Daishou. Like hell he was going to accept help from that guy, it was comparable to screaming defeat in life. While it might have been the smarter thing to do considering Kuroo was unsure whether he could even drive, he was far too stubborn when it came to Daishou. 

He sat at the wheel for a hell of a lot of passing time, head against the wheel with his eyes shut to block out the nauseating flares of lights, colors and darkness. Kuroo could feel his fringe stick against his forehead, his skin feeling stickier against the hard material of the steering wheel the longer he stayed there. Ringing Daichi to just come and get him crossed his mind, but he didn’t want to worry him. Besides, he was busy with a friend and Kuroo didn’t want to get in between them more than he already had. He still believed leaving the paranormal in the dark was the right thing to do, and not just for the sake of the relationship. Of course Kuroo never meant that to affect Daichi’s circle of friends, but he only saw head on for what was best for Daichi and no one else. 

With a groan, Kuroo started the car, throwing on some shades he dumped in his glove compartment to dull the sensitivity his eyes were having a hard time with. His eyes fell on where his lucky charm ratty bracelet was wrapped around his wrist, the skin beneath darkened with purple and blues. Kuroo turned his hand over to see the veins within his inner wrist were almost black; he supposed the random bruising he was getting was just making everything look weird. 

The standard 10 minutes it usually took to get back home was upped to at least 15 as Kuroo barely reached the speed limit, but he did manage to reach home in pretty much one piece. The house was empty, as expected. Kuroo mumbled a brief announcement out of habit, already noting Daichi’s shoes weren’t there. Hime was sat at the top of the stairs, tail flicking from side to side, her emerald gaze locked onto Kuroo. He figured if he just stayed that distance away from her she wouldn’t lash out like she had done each time every day without fail. It wasn’t long before she eventually took off, disappearing on the upper landing of the house. Kuroo didn’t give a shit, he couldn’t be bothered to wallow in self-pity over his cat hating him. He stepped over to the kitchen, opening the cabinet where Daichi threw most of his stronger painkillers which he needed back when he got his bones broken by some particularly troublesome demon infested people and Kuroo just grabbed whatever was closest. Kuroo glanced over the bottle to check what the dose was, only briefly catching the words “take 1” before he decided taking 4 wouldn’t kill him or anything dramatic. 

Kuroo’s phone rumbled in his pocket for a few moments before he realized and he answered without checking the name. “What?”

_ “Hello to you too,” _ Daichi grumbled on the other side.  _ “What’s wrong now?” _

“Sorry, didn’t check who it was,” Kuroo laughed briefly, quickly regretting that as his head began to pound again. “Uh… yeah can we just talk later?”

_ “Oh, yeah sure? You busy?” _

“No, this fucking headache is driving me nuts I just want to go die somewhere or something.” 

_ “You taken some painkillers?” _

“Yeah, just now. Would be a while before they kick in.”

_ “You need to go to the doctor Tetsu, that headache has been there for way too long.”  _

“Maybe tomorrow,” he mumbled. “See you later.”

_ “Alright, see you soon. Take a bath or something, it might help. Love you.” _

“Love you too.” 

A bath did sound appealing, so Kuroo headed up the stairs to start the bath running in the main bathroom. He smiled at the little collection of bath bombs he bought impulsively alongside convincing Daichi to get him some every christmas. As he more often had showers than baths, many of them stayed as bathroom decoration. Kuroo turned to the mirror and observed the many bruises he acquired in the last week over his arms before he pulled the shoulder of his hoodie down to see the nasty discoloration along his collar and shoulder as well. He hadn’t fallen over or anything, nor had he knocked himself against anything. With a shrug, he turned back to the filling tub.  

While Kuroo absently watched as the bathtub filled up, a low thumping sound— as though someone was running up the stairs, caught his attention. He traded a glance between the bathtub and the door before he stepped outside the bathroom, seeing that no one was there. 

“Dai?” 

He shifted nervously in the door frame tugging on the drawstring to his grey hoodie as he watched the stairs for another minute before coming to the conclusion it must have been the cat, though it did sound much heavier. Kuroo turned around as he noticed the lack of running water, seeing that the tap had stopped. 

Kuroo walked over towards the now filled up bathtub, the tap only dripping occasionally contrary to how Kuroo left it running on full blast. It wasn’t some fancy tap that could tell when the bath was full and automatically turn itself off or anything, so there was no way it could have done so. Aside from that, Kuroo had no idea how he focussed on the tap first before realizing the water was a solid black, edges rimmed a deep sanguine against the pristine white of the bathtub. His heartbeat picked up significantly, breaths caught in his moment of disarrayed panic and unknowingness. Regardless of how many times he blinked, the water was still a pitch void. Kuroo forced himself to calm down by internally reasoning the plumbing must have fucked up somewhere for it to turn the water black (red?), which might have also explained how the tap stopped running.

Taking deep breaths, Kuroo kneeled beside the bathtub, staring at his own vague reflection within the inky substance. He leaned forward a little more, catching the familiar whiff of a rotting dead animal before the surface broke and an obsidian, inky sheened grotesque hand clawed with what seemed closer to talons than fingernails reached from the depths of the liquid and latching onto Kuroo’s face before pulling his head below. He swallowed a mouth full of water from the initial shock of being dragged under like that, his hands desperately grasping at the grip latching around his face as his ears blared with the sound of his own rushing blood. Kuroo’s lungs began to burn from the lack of air, his attempts to free himself futile and growing more feeble against the clearly more superior strength. Eventually, it let go. 

Kuroo shot back away from the back tub with a strained wheeze as he hacked against his clawed throat and burning insides. When the lights went out momentarily, Kuroo almost stopped breathing again as he stared towards the tub. As darkness enveloped him, he caught a glimpse of the black claws gripping at the edge of the tub, the haunting visuals wiped away as the light returned. The flickering became less, but the time in darkness became more. Kuroo shuffled further away as he saw the almost humanoid figure crawl out of the tub when darkness fell over the room, the crackling of it’s croaked vocals filling the room. It was large, far larger than Kuroo, it’s facial features indistinguishable in the darkness but Kuroo could make out the milky glare of its eyes and the glinst of it’s large, pointed teeth. They weren’t pearly whites, but instead matched the rest of it’s shade scheme of an oil like black, skin glistening of the sparsely given luster from street lights outside leaking through the blinds.

Kuroo’s breaths were laboured and desperate, gasps honed and ridden with fear when he backed up against the wall as the slump of a figure crawled closer to him. It’s movement came with sickening cracks and a rattling clicking from the base of it’s inhuman vocals. Unfortunately, the light didn’t turn back on.

The creature’s hot breath almost scalded Kuroo’s chilled skin, it’s dripping teeth bared against his face with his talon like claws brushing against the other side of his face. As it’s mouth was inches away from Kuroo’s face, it released what sounded like an agonizing plead for help, a tormented hiss of screams of various tones in the base notes of it’s vocals behind it’s primary rattling snarl. Kuroo forced his lips to stay tight, barely even letting his own horrified whimpers from slipping past in fear he’d make the situation worse. While part of him was hung up on wondering what the hell was going on, the majority of his senses are flared into unbearable fear and anxiety, his bones chilled to ice while his skin drenched in sweat. His limbs trembled violently as the monster’s touch moved down his neck. No matter how wide Kuroo’s eyes were, they were still failing to adjust to the void darkness, and if anything it was becoming darker with each passing moment. 

_ “You’re… mine…”  _

It’s grip clasped onto Kuroo’s leg before pulling him away from the wall to get him flat on his back, his struggles and attempts to crawl back away pointless against the creature’s strength. Kuroo felt something hot and wet trail heavily over his throat before the vile sensation of what he realized to be it’s elongated tongue was replaced by a solid pressure blocking his airways. He choked a spluttered as he dug his nails into the large hand wrapped around his throat, his vision gradually becoming tunnelled and further useless as to what it was in the darkness, however that time he could almost see it’s face; it was indescribably repulsive and downright terrifying, and most definitely  _ not  _ human. Parts of it’s face seemed to have rotted away and revealed what appeared to be of a bear skull, it’s nose hollow and the ivory dirtied with blacks and cerise that merged in with the rest of it’s oily skin. Part of Kuroo’s fear was for the monster, but another part was for the painful familiarity of his position that moment, his mind forcing the image of his own father in place of the monster. 

Light filled the room again, as did Kuroo’s ability to breathe. His body was wracked with a fit of violent coughs as he caught his breath again, the sensation of being held by the throat still latched into his mind. Kuroo rapidly blinked past the hot tears that built in his eyes as he gasped with painful inhales, barely registering the water was clear and nothing was in the room with him before he bolted out of the bathroom. Kuroo disregarded the risk of falling down the stairs in his frantic motion to just run away as he saw Daichi stepping through the front door, not even mid way into his “I’m home” announcement before Kuroo grabbed him. 

“Tets—”

“There’s something upstairs!”

“What?” Daichi caught reddening around Kuroo’s neck. “What happened to your neck—”  

“Upstairs,” Kuroo blurted again, still short of breath. “Ple— please can we just go, there’s some fucking— I dunno!”

“Slow down, what’s upstairs?”

“The bathtub— and, and— it’s big and fuck—” Kuroo turned around with his hands gripped tightly to his dripping hair that dampened his shoulders, feeling the onset of a panic attack approaching. Daichi recognized this and pulled Kuroo over to the main room on the sofa. “Wait, wait, wait— please I just want to go,  _ please.” _

“Just breathe for a minute, okay? Tell me what happened, slowly.” His hands brushed against Kuroo’s neck briefly before the other flinched away from his touch. Daichi withdrew his hand, concern creased between his brows. 

Speaking was already out of the window for Kuroo, whose gasps became heavier and his eyes wide and frenzied in his state of shock. Daichi moved slowly to clasp onto Kuroo’s trembling hands, making sure Kuroo knew he was going to touch him before startling him again. When he felt Kuroo’s fear literally radiate off of him, Daichi glanced towards the stairs with his lips pursed. “I’m going to go look upstairs, okay?”

Kuroo glared at him, hands reaching to grasp onto Daichi’s shirt as the tears formed in his eyes again. Daichi’s chest clenched at the sight, feeling a darkness overwhelm him. “Please don’t—”

“Tetsurou I need to check, okay? It’s going to be okay, I’ll be right back.” 

He didn’t wait for Kuroo’s approval, knowing he would only beg him to just stay downstairs. The bruise already forming on Kuroo’s neck was definitely from someone attacking him, and whoever it was Daichi was going to straight up kill. As he padded up the stairs cautiously, his heightened senses caught the immense emotion of terror and anxiety Kuroo felt while he was up there, but nothing more out of the ordinary. He walked into the bathroom were the door was left swung open and a pool of water was left over the tiles beside the full bathtub. Daichi checked all the other rooms to no avail.   

 

Kuroo watched over the back of the sofa towards the staircase, knees raised up to his chest and chest still heaving. He called Daichi’s name, his own voice pathetically weak and wavering. Honestly, he had never heard himself sound so damn quiet, but alongside the fact he just got choked and had the life scared out of him, it was no surprise. 

A moist heat travelled down Kuroo’s nape alongside the words;  _ “You tell him… I’ll kill him…”  _

He flinched away from the hissed voice from behind violently, almost falling off of the sofa as his eyes darted around the main room and the sensation of being suffocated by his own body overwhelmed him again. Kuroo wanted to call for Daichi again, but his voice failed to even utter a squeak. There was a passing thought that maybe he was going crazy, but it was all far to vivid for it not to be real, and it wasn’t like Kuroo would try and strangle himself, it flat out wouldn’t be possible.

“Tetsu, there’s no one up here. How’d you do that to your neck—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said quickly, remembering the voice’s threat despite his gut telling him to ignore it and that he was crazy. “Can we just go?”

“Tell me now. Did you get in a fight?”

“It was upstairs— fuck! Why does it matter, you weren’t even fucking here you’ll never believe me.” 

Daichi was clearly taken aback by Kuroo’s stronger use of language, his gaze hardening at him. “Tetsurou—”

_ “He was too busy with his shit friends to bother coming home to you, if he was home earlier it wouldn’t have happened.” _

Kuroo followed the voice like it was his own voice, barely flinching at the volume of the harshly whispered vocals against his ear. “Fucking dick, why the hell are you even back so late? You said you’d be back at 5 latest!”

_ “They judge you… not good enough for Daichi, they always say.”  _

“That’s enough, Tetsurou! What the hell’s up with you?!” Daichi searched Kuroo’s face desperately, seeing only the dark bags piling beneath his wild eyes that seethed of anger and his former golden glow fallen to an ashened visage. He was still shaking, no more less than he did when Daichi walked into the house. Keeping himself as composed as he could, Daichi took a deep breath. “Tetsurou… just talk to me calmly. I know you’re tired—”

“So you don’t believe me—”

_ “He’ll never believe you. You’re on your own.” _

“Wait for me to finish,” he snapped, stepping towards Kuroo who startled at the abrupt movement. Daichi raised his hands up, showing he wasn’t going to hurt him. “It’s okay, just sit down with me and talk  _ calmly. _ Enough of cussing me out, stop letting your temper get to you, you’re better than that.” 

Kuroo stood stiffly with his lips pursed together, glassy stare holding nothing more than a dimming flame from his diminishing anger which was overridden with the fear he felt. He glanced down to Daichi’s outstretched arms and contemplated taking for a moment before giving in and giving his hands to Daichi, allowing him to pull him to the sofa. 

The voice was still there, however became something closer to a drone, words unintelligible and smeared together. Kuroo felt like he was going mad, and he didn’t know how to relieve the building pressure of feeling straight up insane without screaming out that he was hearing voices. He rubbed his eye where the pain hadn’t eased from it’s throbbing before kneading his knuckles into both of his temples. Kuroo buried his face into a pillow as he curled up at the end of the sofa, ignoring whatever Daichi was asking him as he had long given up trying to explain. It wasn’t long before his eyelids were being forced shut and his mind was drifting on the edge of unconsciousness in that blank, dark world.    

Daichi gathered Kuroo wasn’t going to answer him and he sighed, running his fingers through Kuroo’s wet dark strands. He whispered he would go and make him hot chocolate and grab a towel and Kuroo gave a distant response in the form of a low mumble past his fatigue. Daichi smiled and kissed him on forehead, feeling the weight of worry pulling at his heart as he pulled away. He walked into the kitchen, instantly spotting the bottle of painkillers left on the edge of the kitchen counter. Daichi frowned as he walked over to look at it, noting it was Talacen. As much as he wanted to believe whatever Kuroo was trying to tell him, the passing thought crossed his mind about a very rare side effect of Talacen which consists of bizarre behaviour and sometimes hallucinations. Kuroo seemed 200% positive there was someone—  _ something  _ upstairs, but Daichi saw or felt no hints towards there was anyone but Kuroo and the damn cat up there. Instinctively, he would blame it on the paranormal, however so far Daichi had felt not even a twinge of what he would normally feel in the presence of a standard spirit or malicious demon, so that could be thankfully ruled out. However, inching towards the explanation that Kuroo might have been losing his mind a little bit wasn’t exactly a good thing either.  

The use of Talacen paired with Kuroo’s evident lack of sleep, Daichi suspected that was to blame for Kuroo’s freak out. But what happened to his neck? Surely Kuroo couldn’t have done that to himself, not to mention the many bruises tainting his skin supposedly appearing out of nowhere. Something felt very wrong and very off, but Daichi couldn’t figure it out; there was the crushing feeling he was missing something glaringly obvious. 

He walked back over to the main room, kneeling in front of Kuroo who was dozing off hugging a pillow. “Tetsu… how many of these did you take?” 

“Huh…” Kuroo didn’t even open his eyes. 

“The painkillers.”

“1,” he mumbled almost inaudibly.    

“Tell me the truth, I know you don’t follow dosage recommendations.” 

Kuroo cracked an eye open, squinting at Daichi. “4.” 

Daichi kissed his teeth and ruffled Kuroo’s damp hair before he stood up. “Dumbass.” It was a total stretch as overdose on pills usually happen with 10 or more popped, but there were dosage recommendations for a reason even if the risk was that small. 

He went off to make hot chocolate for him and Kuroo before having to be met with the difficulty of convincing Kuroo to go upstairs again to go to bed. He put up an initial struggle at first, but he was far too tired and too drained to argue for long and just let himself be dragged back to their bedroom. For then, Daichi blamed the Talacen, but for safe measure he needed to bring Sugawara in at some point.

* * *

 

Daichi had skipped out on taking his sleeping medication that night to watch over Kuroo knowing it would make him feel more at ease knowing Daichi was there and fully alert for him. Although he tossed and turned for hours, Kuroo eventually fell into too deep of a sleep to even react to his feet being tickled. The next day, a bit of a color returned to Kuroo’s face and he looked painfully sheepish and apologetic for his rudeness the previous night. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled against his nails as he nibbled on the fraying edges of his skin. “I didn’t mean to cuss at you like that.” 

“It’s fine, but lay off those painkillers for a while… and go to the doctor.”

Kuroo glared at him, eyes unwavering. “It wasn’t the painkillers, there was something up here.” 

For a minute, Daichi just hummed to himself as he searched his own mind for something to help ease Kuroo. An idea crossed him and he leaned back to grab a repel tag out of the bedside drawer where he tended to stash tags. The off white piece of paper had a sort of artistic symbol scribbled in the middle and Daichi held it towards Kuroo. “It’s not just for spirits, it keeps away negative energy too.” Though if he was honest with himself, he was giving it to Kuroo to be certain that they weren’t dealing with any demons. 

Kuroo flicked his eyes between the piece of scrap and Daichi incredulously. “The hell am I meant to do with that?”

“Keep it on you,” Daichi instructed, shoving it in Kuroo’s hand. His gaze lingered as he almost half expected Kuroo’s skin to burn, but his nerves were settled when there was no reaction. Kuroo was the last person Daichi could even imagine being tormented by a demon, because the thought alone killed him inside. “Believe in it a little, it might help.” 

The image of the creature’s face flashed across Kuroo’s vision momentarily and he thought that maybe it would help after all. “Dai… can you tell if a uh… you know, demon—” Kuroo almost choked on the word, “—is around?” 

Daichi squinted his eyes, feeling his skin chill. “I’ve always been able to tell… why?” 

“Promise me that you’re sure you didn’t bring any of your creepy friends home, please?” 

It sounded almost like a joke, but Kuroo’s eyes glassed over with the same fear as the night before. Promising felt wrong at that moment, but Daichi was next to positive there was nothing around. “I promise. Trust me, no demon would dare step in our house.” 

“You’re the demon bully then huh,” Kuroo laughed halfheartedly, gaze wandering off to the side. “Okay, cool.” 

Daichi stared at Kuroo, brows furrowing. “Tetsu… what’s going on?”

For a moment it actually looked like Kuroo was going to spill each and every single bean, but he only shook his head. “Just tired, I dunno. Nothing interesting.” Kuroo held out his pinky towards Daichi to seal the deal. “Pinky promise?”

He looped his pinky around Kuroo’s, giving him a reassuring smile. “You weirdo.” 

 

Soon enough, Daichi managed to basically force Kuroo to go to the doctor to figure out what the headaches were all about, and to hopefully get painkillers that were specific to whatever the problem was. They were deemed migraines, the causes likely being Kuroo stressing himself out over studying like Daichi suspected. The bruising was said to be a iron deficiency which made no sense due to Kuroo loving his red meats, but nevertheless he was prescribed supplements to get his levels all up again. Over the next couple of days, Kuroo finally began to look like he was getting back to his normal self again, the headaches becoming less and the sleepless nights diminishing. Daichi made it a personal task to keep an eye out to stop Kuroo from overworking himself again to put him into that state again, as it was honestly rather scary.    

The two took a walk within a nearby woodland to get themselves some time of serenity of fresh air, alongside it being somewhat of a date. Daichi watched with a grin as Kuroo held his arms out either side of him as he tread carefully across a fallen tree log over some shallow stream rambling on about chemistry and how much he hated Daishou.

“Daishou? Snake looking guy, right?”

“Doesn’t just  _ look  _ like a snake, he literally  _ is  _ a snake. Sly asshole.”

“I mean, while you can talk all about how shit he is you two never fail to turn up to each other’s birthdays.”

Kuroo craned his neck back, shooting a humoring scowl at Daichi. He really did have a diverse range of unpleasant expressions. “It’s an excuse to share rad insults to call each other.”

“You’re a massive dork,” Daichi laughed, attention slipping towards keeping his balance on the log he was following Kuroo on. “What’s happened to your introvert friend?”

“Kenma? Same old, we actually got a game date tonight.”

“Meeting him?”

“No you old man, Xbox.” 

“The hell is that?”

Kuroo cackled, almost slipping on a patch of moss. “Why am I dating you, you’re basically a dad.”

“I don’t know, you tell me. You were the one being desperate.”

“Sure I was a little thirsty for you, but you kinda had a little drool going for me too right?”

Daichi shoved his shoulder into Kuroo’s back, causing the two of them to tumble down the lacking fall off of the log and into the weak stream below them. Kuroo stared at him wide eyed before cracking up into one of his unholy laughs, kicking some water and dirt at Daichi. 

“You’re an ass, now we’re gonna catch a cold,” Kuroo snickered. 

As he wiped the splashed soil of dirt off of his face, Daichi gave a handful of it back in the form of a hurl towards Kuroo. “You’re definitely doing the laundry.”

“Me? You’re the one who made us fall!”

“You’re the one who splashed me.”

“Because you made us fall into a dirty stream.”

“Laundry or no pancakes for the rest of the year.”

Kuroo squawked at the threat, hauling himself up out of the water. “Dick, that’s not fair.”

A crack of presumably a branch resonated around them and Kuroo whipped his head around in reaction. Daichi noticed Kuroo’s shoulders tense and he stood up and reached towards him. “It’s a public forest, there’s probably other people. Or you know, an animal.”

“Of course I know that,” Kuroo muttered, eyes still searching. “Doesn’t hurt to be curious as to what it was…” 

When Daichi’s hand touched Kuroo’s arm, Kuroo recoiled away like he had been burned. Daichi’s eyes widened and he hurried to apologize. “Sorry, sorry. Here, take my hand.” This time he held his hand clear in Kuroo’s vision so he couldn’t startle him again. That particular behaviour hadn’t been new as Kuroo was always easily spooked and startled by sudden movements and touches. Daichi had learned only within the last couple of years that when Kuroo was visibly in high alert he needed to move a bit slower and more cautiously. Even someone as touchy feely and animated as Bokuto was careful about abruptly grabbing Kuroo like he tend to do with other people. 

Kuroo took Daichi’s hand and smiled. “Wanna grab food?”

“Yeah, you fancy crepes?”

“Always do, that shouldn’t even be a question.”

* * *

 

While Kuroo was occupied with whatever the hell Daichi couldn’t understand which consisted of talking— shouting with some headset thing and button mashing the controller, Daichi took a call from Ukai Keishin; in other words, his mentor. 

_ “How’s the free life going without chasing shadows?”  _

“I’ve been missing out it seems,” Daichi chucked, leaning on his elbow on table. “Spent a lot of my time with Kuroo, so everything’s going pretty well.”

_ “That’s good, that good… You’re not gonna wanna hear this but—” _

“I’m not taking on another case, Ukai.”

Ukai cackled on the other end of the line.  _ “Caught me out, but this is an emergency. I need you with Suga, his current partner isn’t skilled or experienced enough to deal with this case… it’s a fucking nightmare.” _

“Get another pair then, like Oikawa and Iwaizumi. And Ushijima could straight up solo cases.”

_ “I need Suga in particular, and with Suga usually comes you. I can’t put his life at risk but we’re going to lose a life one way or another if I can’t get you to agree.”  _

Daichi glanced quickly through the door before lowering his voice. “Ukai, I’ve promised Kuroo I wouldn’t go back to any of that. If I took this case you have no idea—”

_ “He’ll get over it,”  _ he said simply.  _ “He’s an adult Sawamura, if he throws a tantrum over you just doing your job then you’re dealing with a damn kid. He knew what he was getting into when he pursued the relationship, so Kuroo really needs to suck it up.”  _

“Way to sound harsh,” Daichi mumbled. “It’s not like that. Doing this job means dedicating my life to it, and right now my life is making things work with Kuroo. I can’t do both.”

_ “One case, Sawamura.”   _

Daichi groaned into the phone, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What’s the details?” 

_ “Multiple possession. The guy slaughtered his family. These demons aren’t entirely set on just taking one soul it seems, and he’s going to carry on killing.”  _

The possessed normally posed a danger to others, however incidents more often consisted of broken bones, split skin, bruises and bites. Killing did happen a lot, but less often due to the institute always acting so promptly in dealing with cases before they ripened into something too ugly. “Why Suga?”

_ “Suga is one of our most experienced exorcists and is the only one available who has already dealt with a multiple possession. You are also experienced in multiple possessions and we need all the hands we can get in on this one before something worse happens. We’ve already failed an entire household, Sawamura.” _

“Fine,” he spat, hurrying his words before Ukai could fit in anymore guilt tripping. “When and where?”

_ “As soon as possible, so Monday next week, you've got a few days to prepare. Case is in Sendai so you’re gonna need to pack a bag for this one.” _

“Sendai?” Daichi echoed, feeling his vocals catch along with his chest constricting. “How long are we gone for?”

_ “A few days at most if we do this right. Free a week up in your calendar.”    _

“I can’t leave Kuroo for that long!” Daichi blurted, nerves rising in the heat. “He’s not even doing that well— he’s stressing over studying and I need to keep an eye on—”

_ “He has friends, Sawamura. You’re not his parent.” _

It was indistinct, but that had to be a jab to his and Kuroo’s age gap. “The hell is that suppose to mean?”

_ “Get prepared, it’s gonna be a tough one.”  _

Daichi didn’t get much more of a chance to argue back, but perhaps it was a good thing otherwise he would have exploded into the phone and draw Kuroo’s attention. That wasn’t needed apparently, as Kuroo was already looming over him. Daichi felt his heart sink as he took notice to the towering darkness stood over him. 

“Who was that?” He asked, voice uncharacteristically flat. Daichi stared at him, feeling a sense of uneasiness. 

“Ukai,” Daichi said. “Wants me to do a uh… teaching session next week.”

“Not on field work, right?”

“No, no,” he hurried, lying through his damn teeth. “Just helping some newbies out… wouldn’t be taking part in anything.” Daichi felt sick at the realization he just lied so easily to Kuroo. 

Kuroo arched his brow before humming behind his lips, stepping away to grab a packet of biscuits he went into the kitchen for in the first place. Daichi followed him back into the mainroom and plopped himself on the sofa beside Kuroo as Kuroo returned to his game. 

“What game’s this?” Daichi asked, pushing to make conversation to mask the heavy feeling that Kuroo might have heard the conversation with Ukai and knew Daichi was lying. He inwardly shook himself, knowing damn well Kuroo would definitely voice his vexation if he heard that conversation. 

“Borderlands! You gotta play it with me and Kenma someday, I promise you’ll like it.” 

Daichi chuckled, watching the cartoonish figures move across the apocalyptic wasteland. His eyes fell to where Kuroo was holding the controller, his sleeves pushed up to reveal that the bruises were still hard and bold against his skin. While they all looked rather painful, the one beneath his bracelet caught Daichi’s attention the most. He furrowed his brows, reaching to pinch the bracelet between his fingers; Kuroo had stopped whatever he was doing to glare at him, moving his hand away. 

“Can I look at your bracelet?” Daichi asked, already reaching again in the assumption Kuroo would shrug and say it was fine— he couldn’t have been more wrong.

“No,” he said curtly, retracting his hand away defensively. Daichi stared at him, taken aback by his sudden defensiveness. 

“What’s up with you? Just wanted to look—”

“Yeah and I said no,” Kuroo bit, shuffling away from Daichi. 

Daichi blinked at him, baffled. “Tetsurou—”

“Fuck sake,  _ what?”  _

For a moment, Daichi almost completely lost his temper at Kuroo’s foul behaviour, but it was the fact Kuroo never acted that badly over something so little, or even at anything at all which stopped Daichi dead in his tracks. Kuroo obviously caught his own harsh tone and stared at Daichi with a dumb gape, hand going slack around the controller. 

“Uh… sorry,” Kuroo muttered, clearing his throat as he scratched the side of his head sheepishly.

“You look tired,” Daichi said, excusing Kuroo for him as he stared with concerned eyes. “Why don’t you head to bed?”

“I’m sorry,” Kuroo said again, sinking further into the sofa with both hands running through his hair. “Fuck, I don’t know—”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not, please don’t let me talk to you like that.”

Daichi laughed, reaching to ruffle Kuroo’s hair. He was a little wary that time round with the way Kuroo had been snappy like that on more than one occasion, but Kuroo didn’t come anywhere close to retorting as he did earlier. “Trust me, I would have kicked your ass any other time but… Get some sleep, Tetsu.” 

“I want to sleep with you though,” Kuroo muttered, shifting his gaze to his lap. 

“What, so you can drool all over my shoulder?”

“Hey,” Kuroo said indignantly, smirking ever so slightly. He pressed a button on the controller to shut the game off before he turned to face Daichi fully, inching himself closer and moving his face against Daichi’s cheek. “Come to bed with me.”

“I feel like you’re trying to seduce me here,” Daichi laughed nervously, no doubt being turned on with Kuroo’s wandering hands and hot breath against his neck. 

“Is it working?”

“Move your hands a little further down and I think I’ll know then.”

Kuroo moved back, smirking. “If we go upstairs… I’ll move my hands to wherever you want them.” 

“Not a fan of the sofa this time?” Daichi teased, chasing Kuroo with a kiss to the lips, his own hands sneaking and clasping around Kuroo’s waist. He began to press more gentle kisses up Kuroo’s face, moving from his lips to his cheek and then his forehead. Kuroo wallowed in the affection like always, eyes squinting playfully with a winsome snicker. Soon, Kuroo managed to squirm away from Daichi and off of the sofa, motinoing his head towards the stairs. It felt significantly colder when Kuroo moved away, so Daichi compiled just to get close to him again. 

The transition from downstairs to the upstairs bedroom wasn’t so smooth with the two of them grabbing each other every 2 seconds and pressing their lips against each other like hungry animals. They couldn’t get enough of each other, especially after 3 years of having to fit in the close and intimate moments around a tight schedule, Daichi and Kuroo couldn’t take moments like that for granted. 

Daichi’s shirt was already thrown off before getting through the door frame while Kuroo’s pants were already off of one leg leaving only his black boxer briefs for Daichi to appreciate Kuroo’s beautifully toned ass and lithe, alluring legs. Daichi pushed Kuroo onto the bed and took a moment to grasped at Kuroo’s legs, slipping his fingers up his boxers and leaned over to kiss and suck against his neck. Kuroo released a soft groan and craned his head back to give Daichi more space to let his mouth roam as he reached his hands to unbuckle Daichi’s belt and tugged at the zipper to his jeans. He struggled a little, fumbling for what seemed like over 5 minutes before he grew irritated and had to lift his head to see what he was doing. Daichi laughed against Kuroo’s face and helped him out by pulling his jeans down for him. 

As Daichi blindly searched for the lube on the bedside table, him and Kuroo gradually shuffled more onto the bed with their breaths becoming ragged and kisses ardor bordering on sloppy. Soon, he eventually found and bottle and sat up away from Kuroo’s face for the first time in around 10 minutes, watching as Kuroo’s visage was endearingly flushed and his lips swollen and rosy. Kuroo glanced down to how his legs straddled Daichi’s waist, raising a brow up.

“Missionary?” he smirked, feeling Daichi slip his hand up his shirt. 

Daichi huffed a laugh and grabbed Kuroo’s shoulder to flip him on his front, mindful of untangling his long legs from around him. “Yeah, who’d wanna look at that shit eating grin?”

“Uh, you obviously.” 

“Try and be sexy for just a minute, Tetsurou.”

Kuroo laughed into the bed covers that his face was planted again, poking his bum up for Daichi to tug down his boxers. He glanced back to see yet again Kuroo had left his socks on.

“You’re such a weirdo, having sex with socks on.” 

“Still don’t see the issue,” Kuroo grumbled, wiggling his toes within his knitted and nordic patterned slipper socks. “My feet get cold okay.” 

Daichi wrapped his hand around Kuroo’s waist, feeling where his hip bones jutted prominently. He groaned at the feeling of touching Kuroo’s body like that and he raised Kuroo’s hips up more so his ass was aligned with his cock. They didn’t need so much lube when Kuroo bottomed, half of it being Kuroo could take quite a beating back there and he preferred it on the rougher side.     

It was almost tantalizing with the way Daichi would push up against Kuroo repeatedly, that hot and thick member tempting and teasing Kuroo as Daichi leaned down to nip at Kuroo’s nape as he whispered sweet nothings. Kuroo gasped into his forearm, eyes squeezed shut at the pressure from behind grew and his walls burned from the entry. It was already a known fact between the two of them Kuroo only wanted to be stretched with fingers if they really hadn’t done anything in that long, because the sensation of being filled, stretched and stuffed straight up drove him crazy. Daichi would take his sweet time, pushing only a fraction of his thick head in before pulling out to grind a little longer, lathering up between Kuroo’s cheeks and his pleading hole with those satisfying whimpers and moans wordlessly begging Daichi to just plow him.  

Kuroo’s shirt fell up his curved in back a little more, revealing his glabrous sand golden skin leading up to his slightly paler ass that he pushed up further to chase Daichi’s touch. Kuroo’s face was buried within his arms before Daichi had grabbed an arm to pin down beneath his firm grasp and his other hand slipping up his back to push down just below his nape. The burning returned, but that time it wasn’t interrupted. It kept going, stretching at Kuroo’s walls with a little resistance. Kuroo couldn’t help tensing, may it just be a reaction to having something (hot, pulsing and thick) pushed up his ass or his subconscious knew he liked it extra tight and did the work for him. His breaths came out ragged and shaky, body trembling with both ecstasy and vague discomfort. When Daichi reached the hilt, he stilled for a moment to let Kuroo adjust, leaning over to check on him. 

“You okay?” He breathed, feeling an irresistible urge to start pounding as his cock was comfortably developed within Kuroo’s hot, squeezing walls. Kuroo nodded, voice failing past his struggle to regulate his breaths. Daichi moved his hand up with grasp at those mussed strands, his grip pushing Kuroo’s face further into the bed. “I’m gonna move…”

With that, Daichi didn’t hesitate to withdraw and slam himself back inside with a heavy thrust, earning a strained yelp from Kuroo beneath him. It didn’t take long to find a good rhythm, Daichi’s snaps into Kuroo’s body with perfectly balanced strong and moderately speeded movements. Kuroo’s voice slipped into those sultry moans Daichi never failed to get off on, but he wanted him louder. His movements became sharper and more aimed towards that sweet spot that really made Kuroo jolt, and it wasn’t long before he found it. Kuroo’s knuckles blanched in his balled up fists, teeth clenched and barely letting out those obscured gasps of pleasure and euphoria.

“Daichi…” Kuroo gasped, moving his body against Daichi’s thrusts accordingly to gain the full effect. Daichi groaned as he managed to sink deeper into Kuroo, letting his eyes slip shut as his darkened vision splashed with those vivid splodges.

Kuroo’s mind was in a total haze of lust, sense of time of location totally wiped away as each thrust into him numbed his brain. He barely managed to open his eyes again that had been glued shut for the entire time, vision failing to adjust to the dim light of only the side lamp being their source of luminosity. His bleary eyes met where Daichi held his arm down and his breath caught way back in the base of his throat. Kuroo blinked a few times in an attempt to focus his eyes, but it wasn’t changing what he was seeing. The hand took up almost the majority of his entire forearm, the slick gleam of the oil like skin familiar. Kuroo squirmed a bit in panic, voice lost somewhere in that pit that formed in his chest and stomach and his breaths quickened which could have easily been passed off as him enjoying himself as far as Daichi was concerned— but even so, Kuroo couldn’t figure out where Daichi was. His eyes moved to look up past his fringe that was matted down over his face and eyes, barely making out the figure above him past those dark strands, but he could tell as much that it wasn’t Daichi. While his muscles locked up and a sense of paralysis washed over him, the throbbing pain rippled behind his eye in such an agonizing pang it almost blinded him. Tears burned in his eyes, feeling increasingly more panicked that he couldn’t move his head against the grip on his hair and that formerly exhilarating feeling of lust had been replaced with terror and pain. The discomfort grew and Kuroo desperately tried to get some words out to tell Daichi (if it even was Daichi) to stop, but it was futile. 

The burning heat washed over Kuroo’s neck as the rattling and clicking he remembered far too well grew closer, the gurgled snarl morphing into those anguished and harrowing wails right against his ear. It was so loud Kuroo thought it might burst his eardrum, so he squeezed his eyes shut again and prayed to whoever could be listening that he was just going crazy and none of it was actually happening. 

_ “Remember me?”  _

With a final desperate and wretched attempt, Kuroo forced something— anything, past his teeth. “D— Daichi—”

“Yeah?” He said as he slowed his movement, breath laboured and chest heaving with exhaustion. Daichi was caught off with the sound of Kuroo’s voice which gave him nothing short of piercing chills. He looked down, seeing Kuroo’s body trembling viciously and his breathing strained and hindered with sobs. “Tetsu?”

He stopped immediately, getting off of Kuroo and moving beside him with his best attempts to find what was wrong. Kuroo hid his face in his arms and Daichi saw how his hands were ridden with violent tremors. Daichi’s eyes were wide with both confusion and horror, fearing he did something wrong as well as the sensation of his own heart being crushed at the sight of seeing Kuroo in that state. He touched him gently, shaking him to try and rouse him and get him to tell him what happened.

“Tetsurou, what happened? Did I do something?” Daichi almost felt like he himself couldn't breathe, feeling powerless and baffled over what caused this. It all seemed to happen in the space of a mere second, Kuroo acting completely fine to crying and hyperventilating. Daichi felt physically sick with himself. “I’m sorry… fuck, I’m so sorry—” Daichi shut right up when his gradually welling up eyes caught the deep hues over Kuroo’s arm where he held him, and he was convinced such a bruise wasn’t there before. First of all, a bruise like that takes a day or more to even show up, so it couldn’t have been from Daichi. 

Kuroo eventually began to raise his head, however refused to move his gaze anywhere close to Daichi. While keeping his eyes low, he focused on quelling his sobs and stopping the tears staining and reddening his face. “I feel sick.” 

Daichi’s attempt to grab Kuroo before he took off to the bathroom failed, and the stomach churning sound of Kuroo retching into the toilet filled the otherwise silent room. Daichi forced himself to move, despite his legs feeling stiff and paralyzed, and stepped over to the bathroom. He moved the door open softly, watching how his boyfriend was hunched over the toilet with his knuckled whitened at his desperate grip around the edges of the toilet bowl. Kuroo’s back heaved with heavy breaths, his figure jolting as another wave of nausea hit him and he emptied his contents. Daichi saw similar bruising over the back of Kuroo’s neck and he felt himself go cold. 

_ There was no way—     _

“S— sorry,” Kuroo finally said past his heaving, face having gone a sickly ash with sweat sheening over his countenance. “It’s not you…”

As much as Daichi wanted to pry anything to go by out of Kuroo, he knew right then wasn’t the right time. It didn’t come as a surprise when Kuroo flinched away from Daichi’s touch initially, but he eventually coaxed him into his arms as he held Kuroo protectively against his chest. He whispered comforts and I love you’s into Kuroo’s hair, the flicked up tuffs vaguely tickling Daichi’s face. No matter how many times he stroked and patted down the wild hair, it always managed to valiantly spring back up. Kuroo eventually began to relax into Daichi’s embrace, breathing soon evening out and his trembles reduced to something less soul wrenching. 

They must have sat there for hours, Kuroo having long fell asleep and Daichi’s eyes stinging from the lack of moisture as he neglected to blink much. He stared vacantly at an empty space in the bathroom and his mind threaded through various explanations as to what was going on with Kuroo. For the first time in many years, Daichi doubted his instincts.    

As the clock hit the 3AM mark, Kuroo shifted around and began to stir. Daichi looked down and brushed Kuroo’s hair out of his face to see the fatigue settled into the details of his visage. Kuroo stared at him for a moment before averting his gaze, rolling his shoulder beneath Daichi’s wrapped arms to fix up his cramped limbs from sleeping awkwardly. 

“C’mon, lets get changed and go to bed,” Daichi said into the dark, fingers slipping through the soft tuffs of Kuroo’s hair. When his hand brushed over Kuroo’s skin, he noticed he was unusually hot. “You’re really hot…”

“Thanks,” Kuroo mumbled with his hoarse and neglected voice, reaching blindly for something to aid him to stand up. 

“That too but I mean your head,” Daichi chuckled, using the back of his hand to press against Kuroo’s forehead. “Might be coming down with something.” 

Kuroo only hummed before he stood up with wobbling legs. Daichi was quick get up and stand behind Kuroo to make sure he didn’t tumble over or anything and stood close until they made it to the bed. Kuroo slipped on his boxers with not so much of a word before he buried himself under the covers and seemingly fell asleep scarily quick. Daichi whispered his name a few times, only earning a grumble in response before Daichi got the hint Kuroo just wanted to be left alone to sleep. He slipped himself beneath the covers and moved closer to Kuroo’s heat, wrapping his arms around his curled up body as he gave a final kiss to Kuroo’s face before laying in silence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is beyond late, I apologize! I've finally found some time to start working on this again. Anyway, I hope this is enjoyable!  
>  **Warning: Implied/referenced suicide**

Daichi eyed the blood smeared down the door and embedded into the tiny dents of the painted wood, the room small and suffocating, a ringing in his ears drowning out the desperate crying. Where he stood in the scene, Daichi had no clue. Maybe he was viewing it like a movie, maybe he was the air itself, or maybe he was the child, screaming and begging desperately for his mother to open the door. Nothing was clear, everything feeling prominently disconnected and vague.

It was a mere hunch but Daichi doubted that it was the closing in 4 walls or desolating darkness scaring him, surprisingly. He tried to look around, but his vision wouldn’t move on his own accord. A slither of light leaked beneath the door, a glimmer of hope that he wasn’t in the deep end of no return just yet. Small hands fell to the floor, split and bloodied, washed with the deep hues of trauma along those fragile knuckles. Behind the ringing was nothing more than a soft sob, lethargic and lacking the power it had moments before. His breathing was ragged and hitched, pausing every now and then with each jolt provoked by the heavy crying.

Soon he noticed that he wasn’t the only thing breathing in there.

 

Darkness still laid behind the blinds when Daichi’s eyes flew open, skin pricked in a cold sweat and chest heaving. He winced at the cool air pinching his skin, groggily moving his eyes around the pitch darkness as his mind and body still weren’t in sync. Waking up from disturbing dreams while on sleeping pills was always a hassle, the effects still prominent however negligent to do its job in keeping him asleep.

It was a strange dream, no more stranger than many of other sleepless nights Daichi had endured but strange nonetheless. Often they connected to cases he worked on, exposure to the paranormal provoking his hidden senses, but he had been out of commission for a good while by then. It felt like it should have been a memory, but not one of Daichi’s as far as he knew. Daichi rolled his head towards Kuroo who was as far as he could possibly be away from Daichi, back turned at him and curled up on the edge of the bed with the usual pillow helmet he had a tendency to display. He reached over to touch Kuroo’s arm, almost flinching away at the chilled surface of his skin. It took another few moments to connect dots and realize the windows were flung right open.

It took a little while, but Daichi’s limbs eventually regained function and he dragged himself to the windows, shivering and clenching his teeth in discomfort before retreating back to the warmth of the bed. He sat up against the headboard, covers pulled up to his chin and threw the remaining over Kuroo. While he did so, he traced his fingers over Kuroo’s nape, narrowing his eyes at the dark bruising that had made an appearance since a few days ago. Kuroo didn’t want to talk about what happened— in fact, he didn’t want to talk much at all. He was down with a fever for a couple of days and just wanted to be left alone, and when he wasn’t even nearly well enough he would force himself to go to classes despite being on the worst for the wear side.

Daichi felt like Kuroo was avoiding him— _knew it_ in fact, even in bed when he’d purposely sleep right on the edge contrary to how he usually squashed himself right up against Daichi at every glimmer of a chance he got.

Part of Daichi believed he must have done something wrong that night, maybe he hurt him without realizing. But another part of him saw a little deeper, suspected a little more, even the far fetched ideas. His mind flashed to that bracelet of his and Daichi cautiously moved across the bed and leaned over Kuroo. His arm was in a good position to make it easy to take the damn thing off, as long as Kuroo remained in a knock out state from the sleeping pills he asked to use from Daichi. It was a delicate procedure of removing the bracelet, but it was going smoothly. During the process, Daichi noticed Kuroo’s hand was clenched into a fist, and secondly there was something poking out of his grip. He furrowed his brows and removed the bracelet before flicking his gaze over Kuroo’s sleeping face between the pillows. He made no signs of awakening so he went on to pry his hand open. It was a task, Daichi would give him that, and for a moment he honestly thought he wouldn’t be able to unclench his fist, but within time— and a lot of struggling, he managed to remove the paper wedged in his grip. Kuroo had held onto it so tightly he left bright red crescents on his palm.

It was the repel tag Daichi had given Kuroo when he freaked out about something being in the bathtub.

Daichi pursed his lips as he gazed down towards the crumbled parchment, his dark eyes moving to Kuroo before he placed the tag back into his hand. Something was scaring Kuroo, but he wouldn’t— or maybe couldn’t tell Daichi what. Daichi had tried desperately to focus his senses on more than one occasion to check and check again that he wasn’t missing something that was in his realm of expertise, but it always came to the same thing: nothing. When he began to move away from Kuroo, he was startled by Kuroo’s cold and firm grip clasping to his wrist that he stilled.  

“Dai…” he rasped, not even opening his eyes. “‘at’s the time…?”

Daichi didn’t notice himself hold his breath until he released it, thankful the first words weren’t related to the bracelet. “It’s 1, Tetsu. Go back to sleep, sorry I woke you.” He planted a soft kiss against Kuroo’s forehead and he shifted under the contact. Maybe Daichi needed to inquire about those sleeping pills, the ones he currently had that were claimed to be one of the strongest clearly failing to keep either one of them asleep. Daichi moved away from Kuroo slowly, watching the other man still and listening to his breathing fall to nearly silence to indicate he was knocked out again. Once certain he was asleep, he rolled out of bed, grabbing a carton of cigarettes and a lighter off of his bedside table and padded off out the room and down the stairs through the dark house.

Lights weren’t needed, the map of the house embedded into Daichi’s feet memory at least. Once he made it to the kitchen he finally flicked on the light and pulled a chair out, cautiously so to not scrape the legs against the floor. It took a moment to two for his vision to adjust to the sudden luminosity, but soon they focussed in on the limp and ratty bracelet that laid in his palm. Daichi absently lit the cigarette he placed between his lips, exhaling a cloud to the side while his gaze remained on the little gift he had given Kuroo long ago. He wasn’t sure why Kuroo was so attached to it, and especially recently how he’d get defensive enough to show anger over Daichi simply asking to look at it. It wasn’t like Kuroo at all, and it all lead to one explanation Daichi was all too accustomed to seeing.  

Nothing else made sense however.

There should have been signs, there should have been something— anything that Daichi could have caught even a breeze of. He had been around the paranormal for over 9 years, he couldn’t miss anything even if he wanted to. There was a something Ukai had taught him time and time again; the paranormal was _never_ predictive, and to assume so was beyond foolish.

He took a long drag with the flaring embers on the end of the cigarette caught in his vision and leaned back on the chair, wondering for just a moment if he could get away with lighting the bracelet on fire. That moment turned into a _long_ moment, and then a fixation. Daichi held the lighter close to the threaded bracelet and waited for the click, bringing the flickering flame closer—

“You can do that when I fail all my papers.”

Daichi hacked one hell of a cough on that last drag, the smoke going all the wrong ways and his heart gone off somewhere that wasn’t within his chest cavity. He turned around, eyes wide as Kuroo stood against the counter with his arms crossed, his glare piercing towards where Daichi was going to burn his so called lucky charm. “What the hell Tetsurou— you were asleep!”

“Might have stayed asleep if you wouldn’t talk so fucking loud, were you on the phone or something?”

Talking? Daichi stilled and narrowed his eyes at Kuroo. “…No I only spoke when I told you to go back to sleep.” Maybe he was dreaming.

Kuroo averted his gaze and shrugged. “Either way, I’m awake now so your mastermind plan to make me fail my classes isn’t gonna work.”

“This thing—” Daichi shook it around with a hint of exasperation, “—isn’t going to help you with anything. And it’s gross I’ll just get you a new one if you’re that bothered about it.”

“I don’t want a new one, I want that one.”

“It’s a bracelet, Tetsurou. It’s not made of gold or anything just forget it—”

“It’s your first gift to me,” Kuroo blurted, voice getting desperate as the reasons why Daichi shouldn’t give it back was piling up. “Please— I really need it, it’s fucking ugly and dumb I know but I need it.”

Daichi closed his mouth and tensed, trading his hard and dark gaze between the bracelet and Kuroo’s bruised wrist. It killed him to go against Kuroo’s pleads, but he needed to get to the bottom of things. “Will you… let me borrow it for a few days then?” He knew better than to let Kuroo speak then, watching the way his shoulders stiffened at the request. “I’m not throwing it away— or burning it, or anything, I just want to borrow it. I think I’m in need of a little luck lately…”

The silence was thick between them, but Kuroo eventually just gave a quick nod and shifted around uncomfortably. “You’re not suppose to smoke indoors,” he mumbled, clearly attempting to push his own mind off of the subject of the bracelet before he got too agitated. “It stinks.”

“Sorry, I know,” Daichi said, wafting his hand in the air in a habit and reaching for the ashtray were the but of the cigerette still smoked. He stepped over towards the back door to throw it out.

“Thought you were quitting.”

“Getting around to that,” he assured, chucking the ashes away outside. Daichi stole a glance over his shoulder and saw Kuroo kneading his eye again. “Still hurts?”

“What?”

“Your headaches,” Daichi elaborated. “Is the medication still working?”

“No,” Kuroo snorted, dragging out a chair to plop himself onto. “It’s fine though, I’m almost used to it.”

Daichi nodded as he walked back into the kitchen, feeling the silence weigh heavy again. He pursed his lips and moved closer to Kuroo. “Hey, Tetsurou… you know lately you’ve been a little off with me.”

“No I haven’t,” he retorted a moment too quickly, not looking up at Daichi and just idly scratched at his wrist where his bracelet was.     

“You have.” Daichi didn’t wait for Kuroo to come back at him that time. “But whenever we’ve have a problem you’d never hesitate to just… come to me and talk about it. That night we—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured after a long moment, quietly so and lacking the fight he normally held in his tone at the subject. Kuroo moved his head to the side and stared blankly at Hime who was sat in the doorway carelessly flicking her tail from side to side as she watched him back. She would never walk in the room if Kuroo was there, but she would always sit close with her curious gaze trained onto him. There were passing thoughts of wanting to drown the damn cat for all the times she scratched and hissed at him, only to sit around and stare at him like a creep for hours. The fact it was a rather disturbing thought didn’t quite reach Kuroo. “I wish she’d just fucking die.”

Initially, Daichi just thought he misheard Kuroo, but the words were sharp and very real. Kuroo didn’t have anything to back himself up or explain himself to Daichi who only stared at him in horror. “…Tetsurou,” he said slowly, not knowing where to even start or go with scolding Kuroo for saying such a thing.

Kuroo rubbed his eye that throbbed again and just shook his head, not meeting Daichi’s gaze. “Sorry. I’ll just go to bed.” Hime had already sensed Kuroo was going to walk through the door and had long bolted off to another area of the house. Daichi stood in the middle of the kitchen, both in bafflement and fear. Kuroo would never say that, not about any animal and most certainly not about his beloved cat, not even as a joke.

Before Kuroo could leave the room, Daichi grabbed him by the arm. “What the hell was that?”

“What?”

“Talking about killing Hime? Actings all sorts of of weird— this isn’t you.”

“I dunno, Daichi. Maybe I’m just pissed,” he said, turning slowly to look at Daichi with his dark eyes. _“Really_ pissed off actually that you’re a liar.”

Daichi’s heart froze for a moment, but his caught himself before being submerged beneath the ice pricking at his skin. “What are you talking about?”

Kuroo’s eyes searched Daichi’s face, catching the way his visage stiffened at the accusation and the sweat beading at his temples. He smiled, mirthlessly and briefly, huffing as he tore away the eye contact. “I was being pretty patient actually… just waiting for you to come clean and say you were actually taking on a case in Sendai and not just some bullshit teaching. Really? You were honestly just going to fucking leave and do all the crap you swore off and not even tell me?”

“Tetsur—”

“Shut up, you could have just said and I still would have been pissed but not as pissed as I am now.”  

The irrational side of Daichi wanted to somehow stick by his pathetic lie and claim he had no idea what Kuroo was talking about, but those glassy eyes filled with hurt, betrayal and a hell of a lot of anger crushed him.

“You promised,” Kuroo said, voice growing smaller the longer Daichi let the silence stretch. Kuroo didn’t know if he actually wanted him to defend himself at that point, to tell Kuroo he was overreacting and he might have misheard information, but he got nothing to settling the fire. “You promised to my face, you even pinkied… but I guess I’ve always known how meaningless all of that is to you.”

“Don’t say that,” Daichi hissed, taking slow steps on his ground. “I meant that promise! I would never make promises I knew I was going to break—”

“Then why break it? You settled with the idea that I’m actually really controlling and won’t let you live you life?”

Daichi’s words caught in the back of his throat and he stared at Kuroo. “Where the hell are you even getting all of this? I don’t think that of you!”

“You do, all your friends do too, but hey I guess I’m the selfish fucker for being scared that you’re not going to come home one day, guess I’m the bad guy for giving a shit every time you got hurt.”

“It’s not like that! This case—”

“Then what is it, Daichi?! _This case_ what? Why is it all so important to you, why the fuck are these strangers you’ve never met before who fucked around with the wrong spirits more important to you than me?!”

It was all spiralling downwards, Daichi couldn’t fit a glimpse of defence in— he didn’t even feel like he deserved the chance to. Kuroo was right, he did break that promise, he did go to the extent of lying about it instead of maturely talking to Kuroo and accept he would be angry. Lying didn’t just make Kuroo the standard angry, it brought out a whole new side of spite and hatred that Daichi hadn’t seen before. His words may have been held back, but the dark look in his glare didn’t fail to shudder Daichi to the core. “When did you find out…”

“That doesn’t matter, but hey now you’ve confirmed it so fuck you.”

“Let me talk,” Daichi insisted, finally meeting Kuroo’s eyes again. “I know it was wrong to lie, I know I should have told you. It was a stupid mistake, I fucking know and I regret it… Tetsurou I love you more than anything, but I need to help Sugawara with this. I can’t risk his life because of my abrupt retirement, I need to help while I can. You’ve known from the start it’s not easy to just leave that world behind!”

He waited and waited for Kuroo to raise his voice up at him again, but Kuroo’s expression was unreadable at that point. Kuroo took a step back and exhaled, running his hand down his face. “You know, maybe if you just put as much effort into this relationship as you do with your fucking little rituals and shit… _maybe_ we could have been great.”

What had to come, Daichi didn’t want to hear it.

_“Maybe I could have loved you till the end of time, but I really don’t see it now.”_

Daichi wanted to cover his ears, to squeeze his eyes shut and remove his senses from feeling Kuroo’s presence tower over him, breath hot as it ghosted over his skin from the closeness.

_“I don’t love you anymore.”_

“Then leave!” He snapped, vocals cracking into hysterics and the tears threatening at the corners. “If you’re not happy, fucking leave! You could have always left, you’re always complaining how I can’t give you what you want well fucking be my guest the door is right there. There’s no chains attached, _Tetsurou,”_ Daichi ensured the venom was heard on his name, “you were staying with me on your own accord. You hurt yourself by staying with a guy you don’t even fucking love.”

Kuroo stared, brows furrowed and gaze wide and he blinked a few times. He looked a little puzzled, but Daichi couldn’t see much past the red in his own vision. “I never said I didn’t love you,” he said quietly, turning away from Daichi. “I stay because I love you, but you’re the one willing to discard me so easily.”

Daichi looked up, eyes stinging. “What?” He choked, feeling like laughing out in madness. “Don’t play victim here, you just admitted you don’t love me anymore.” Thinking about those harsh words hurt far more than Daichi was willing to show.

“Now you’re just putting words into my mouth,” Kuroo mumbled, already through the doorway. “But I’ll leave.”

Disregarding the fact Kuroo was acting oblivious to the hurtful statement of not loving him not even 20 seconds ago, Daichi crossed his arms as his thoughts ran loudly, trying to make sense of the situation. Was that the end of the 3 years they had together? Just like that? Was it really all worth it?

_He doesn’t love me._

It felt wrong and off—

_He said it himself._

Daichi shook his head and dragged himself out of the kitchen, feet heavy and weight as a whole feeling like it doubled with the packed misery, anger and confusion. He made his way up the stairs and back to the room where Kuroo wasn’t wasting any time in grabbing all his stuff. “Stop it. Don’t go anywhere.”

“You fucking told me to,” he said flatly, not breaking his attention away from packing his things.

Daichi grabbed Kuroo’s bag away from him forcibly and lured that fierce glare into his direction. “I said stop.”

Kuroo didn’t say anything for a while, breaths heavy through his nostrils to contain his hurt and anger at the situation, but soon words filled that tangible space between them. “Let’s just… have some time away.”

“What?”

“Go do your Sendai shit and we’ll talk after, I can’t be bothered now.”

Despite Daichi’s little experience with long-term relationships, he really didn’t believe in _taking breaks._ “What the fuck— no! Just fucking sit down and we’ll talk now—”

“I don’t want to.”

“Always what _you_ want,” he hissed, seething irritation still leftover. Daichi took a moment to breathe and shut his eyes, focussing his emotions into not spilling them out so uncontrollably. It was becoming increasingly difficult not to cry. He opened his eyes again, resisting the sting in them. _“Please,_ I want to fix this now. If we leave it… it’s just like an infection, it’ll spread, it’ll get worse, and we may not even come back from it. Please Tetsurou, just talk with me.”

_Creak._

Kuroo glanced behind him at the sudden sound, almost disregarding Daichi’s words before he returned his attention back to him. He felt a little lost on what to say, distraction hindering his voice. “Okay— yeah, I don’t know what to say.”

_Creak._

“Just please tell me what’s going on with you,” Daichi pleaded. “You’ve always told me everything before but now there’s a big void between us.”

 _Creak._ Longer that time, dragged out and harsh.

Kuroo’s divided attention was picked up by Daichi, but he allowed him to speak first before mentioning anything about it. “Think I’m just… tired. I don’t know. You’re avoiding the topic that you’re just packing off to Sendai.”

“I already explained that to you.”

_Creak._

“Yeah and I’m not accepting it, I may as well leave now,” Kuroo shrugged, his harsh gaze fixated onto Daichi.

“Leaving won’t solve shit! Don’t you understand how much I love you?”

“Obviously not enough to drop that Sendai case—”

_Creak._

Kuroo felt like he was 10 seconds away from madness if he didn’t let himself retort to the sound. “Fucking— what the fuck is that sound?!”

Daichi blinked at Kuroo, baffled at his abrupt explosion. “What are you talking about?”

The two of them flinched at a heavy banging on the front door, both of them whipping their heads towards the door and gazing at the landing for a moment. Daichi traded his glance between Kuroo and the door and excused himself. “We’ll pick this up in a minute, stop packing your shit.”

Kuroo had to refrain from pulling an immature expression and packing up his stuff anyway, but at the same time he couldn’t get his body to move regardless. He watched wordlessly as Daichi made his way out the bedroom and listened to his heavy steps down the stairs.

 

Daichi peered through the peephole and saw no one. Furrowing his brows he opened the door anyway, scanning the front porch and the street before the house for a moment before closing the door again. He really didn’t have the patience for prankers at that time of the night and especially with the height of his emotions that moment. As he turned on his heel, the banging came again, stopping him in his tracks. He turned slowly to face the door, staring for a second before 3 more bangs followed. Daichi stepped quickly towards it and swung open the door, yet again meeting with nothing but the night’s cool air and darkness.

“What the fuck,” Daichi muttered, clenching his jaw as he glanced around and closed the door again. He stood there for a little while before shaking his head.

He couldn’t say he wasn’t expecting it when the banging returned and Daichi had already swung it open mid knock. Daichi almost wish he didn’t when he was met point blank with the lean body of black fur hanging limply from the door frame with what looked like to be Kuroo’s university I.D cord, the cat’s head having been twisted all the way round with her mouth agape into something that looked like an anguished scream, a deep pool of sanguine stained on the outside welcome mat beneath her hanging body.

“Hime—” he choked out, barely a croaked whisper as his voice disconnected away from him, feeling the pricking in his eyes as his mind took a moment to register what he was staring at. Daichi blinked rapidly in a desperate attempt to rid the sight and pray it was all a sick joke, a game his own brain was playing against him from all the building stress in the recent days, but it was painfully _very_ real.

 

Kuroo twiddled his thumbs and huffed like an impatient child when Daichi took far longer than expected. He could have gotten all his stuff together by then but he was stuck waiting for a lecture— _with a fucking liar—_ and to be dragged into more broken promises and hassle. Kuroo wasn’t sure what it was all for if he was honest with himself.

_“Why did you stay?”_

He glanced up, amber eyes staring dead into the pitch of the dark landing outside of the bedroom, the darkness where all the nightmares lurked. The scariest thing about it was that the darkness was slowly slipping into his safe zone, and Kuroo couldn’t stop it. He blinked away his own anxiety driven visuals and stood up with a heavy exhale, meeting with brief darkness as the lights flickered above him. Fear etched itself down to his bones again, remembering all too well the last time the lights did that. With his quickening breath and beading cold sweat, Kuroo was already making a move towards the door before it slammed in his face, darkness following it that very instant.

_Creak._

Kuroo turned to the sound again, seeing darkness for another moment and then a body dropping the next. He fell backwards against the door, feeling the carpet beneath his sweat ridden hands and realizing the body never quite reached the floor with him. It remained there, suspended in a slow swinging motion, lagging creaks from the rope being tested with its weight limits.

_Creak._

And then, it stopped, no creaking and no swinging, just deathly stillness like everything had frozen. Kuroo wasn’t even breathing, he stared up with streaming eyes at the silhouette of a man, his face not visible in the darkness. There was a fine line between tranquill and chilling, and Kuroo was all the way into the freezer at that point, falling even further when the rope snapped and the body dropped before him, those ink sheened claws grabbed him by the throat and the bloodshot wild gaze bored right into his.  

_It reeked of sulphur._

_“It’s your fault.”_

In the leaking stream of a street light through the window, Kuroo recognized the man to be his father, black bags beneath his venomous glare, face coated in greying stubble. He held a broken bottle in one hand, eyes unwavering from Kuroo’s face. His hot, grotesque breath washed over Kuroo’s crying face, reeking of alcohol and cigarettes, stained teeth bared so close to Kuroo’s skin in that malicious grin of his. The hand was removed from Kuroo’s throat, and instead clasped onto his hair while his other arm was raised with the bottle above him.

_“Scream for me.”_

When the fatal ends of the broken bottle was slammed down into Kuroo’s right eye, he screamed past the sound of his own flesh being ripped apart, the warmth of the sanguine flooding over his face and into his mouth, turning that scream into something inhuman and tortured. The pain radiated from his skull to his shoulders, his hoarse scream ripping from his throat, leaving the walls raw and fraying his vocals out of the agonizing sound. Kuroo’s father pushed deeper, twisting the weapon into the socket with the intent to kill and wallowed in the curdling sound of anguish.

 

“Tetsurou… listen to me— just put it down, okay?”

Kuroo was staring into familiar chocolate eyes, those eyes he had never seen so horrified in his 3 years of looking into them. Daichi looked pale, expression mixed into fear and concern. He was against the wall, Kuroo realizing moments later he was holding him there— and with a knife to Daichi’s throat, held firmly enough that there was a trickle of red.

Kuroo couldn’t muster up any words, or even unlock his own limbs to let Daichi go. He flicked his eyes frantically over him, feeling the hot tears on his own face the more his came to terms with what he was doing. Daichi noticed the change in demeanor and slowly wrapped his hand around Kuroo’s wielding arm, remaining in firm eye contact in assurance as he pulled Kuroo’s hand away from his throat.

“W—what… am I…” He was just upstairs getting his eye gouged out. Kuroo was certain of it, the horrific pain still evident with the taste of his own blood in his mouth, however the more he tried to think what happened the more disorientated he became. “I don’t know— what… what the fuck’s wrong with me—”

“Hey, hey listen to me,” Daichi interrupted, moving his hand up to Kuroo’s face. “It’s okay, it’s fine—”

Kuroo backed away further that time, releasing Daichi from his pin against the wall dropping the knife completely. His trembling palms met his face as he began to sob, feeling completely disconnected and confused about the whole situation. Was he going to kill Daichi? Kuroo wasn’t a killer, he even felt a little guilty when swatting mindless flies, there was no possible way he would hurt Daichi. A draft draw Kuroo’s attention elsewhere, his eyes moving to where the door was flung open, and then noticing Hime strung up on his own I.D cord. He moved his eyes back down in front of him, and then glancing over his arms and hands where cerise slits ran down them like cat scratches. Kuroo shook his head, emotions having gone down a black hole and leaving him unable to feel anything at that moment.

“It’s… a bad dream,” Kuroo murmured, eyes vapid and features devoid of anything. He couldn’t feel Daichi’s hands clasp at his.

“Listen to me,” Daichi demanded again, moving towards Kuroo. “There’s no way you could have done that to Hime, you were with me— I promise it isn’t your fault—”

“I had a knife to your throat,” Kuroo hissed, glancing up to catch the red again and feeling his own stomach rip apart inside of him. “I’m _sorry,”_ his voice cracked then, pathetically and pleadingly in a way, he was terrified and he didn’t know what to do. Daichi’s warm arms wrapped around Kuroo who somehow made it to the floor, face in hands and body trembling. His arms were warm, as always, but Kuroo still felt bitterly cold. It was always so cold, lately. Not even the sun in his life could warm him up.

“I think I’m… losing it,” Kuroo admitted into the crook of Daichi’s shoulder, volume of his voice barely audible.

“You’re not,” Daichi said simply, his tone even sounding a little dark. He stared dead on past Kuroo’s hair, feeling the sensation he should have felt a long time ago as he held Kuroo’s tightly towards him. Cold, desolated and tortured, the sensation of being drowned in thick, abyss black ink created from fear itself, like an annihilating cancer in the soul slowly breaking it apart, turning it onto itself. It was so brief, but in that flicker of a moment, Daichi felt like he was dragged to hell, limbs being torn off in the process. He couldn’t feel his body anymore, everything falling numb. Daichi had felt it many times before, but that time it genuinely terrified him.

Daichi eyed the blade on the floor, a bright string of blood rimming the edge of it before he clenched his fist around the bracelet he took off of Kuroo. He wasn’t just going to send that demon back to hell, he was going to tear the fucker apart with his bare hands.

* * *

 

Kuroo groaned as he felt a pressure build on his arm. He pushed at it blindly, thinking it was Daichi trying to wake him up. Another tug at his arm and Kuroo’s temper flared in his groggy state. “Dai, stop it…”

The tugging stopped for a moment, and Kuroo easily slipped back to the edge of unconsciousness. That was until the touching returned, venturing over his shoulder and on his thigh, gripping not so gently at all. “Daichi,” he hissed, unable to crack his eyes open from the extreme fatigue.

It stopped again, a shorter moment that time before a pain ripped at Kuroo’s shoulder blade, an animalistic growl piercing at his ears and waking Kuroo with a gasp at the sensation of something clamping down on his skin. Kuroo sat upright on the sofa, already reaching to his back to feel the dampening of his torn shirt and he drew his hand back to see blood. The fear pushed his senses further out of the grogginess and he immediately searched around the mainroom with wide eyes, not seeing Daichi anywhere.

Kuroo couldn’t trust that he wasn’t dreaming, even though the pain felt real, the blood looking real, everything that very moment appearing more than real. He thought he was going to start having a panic attack, everything becoming too overwhelming and the fear of being alone crushing him in his own body— but then he heard that voice, comforting and signalling security. Daichi was just in the other room, talking in low tones presumably on the phone.

Kuroo felt his shoulders sink in brief relief, listening absently to Daichi’s voice. He ran a hand down his face and over the irritation over his shoulder before he stood up, rubbing at his right eye that was still panged with pain. Kuroo stepped over to the mirror, observing the redness of his eye beneath his fringe. Both of his eyes were sporting bruised purple and black bags like he hadn’t slept in weeks— well, it sure felt like that. He brushed his hair out of face and stared a little harder in his right eye, ignoring the pain for just a moment to catch a wisp of black flicker through it. Kuroo startled back away from the mirror, moving his eyes a little further up to see those milky eyes behind him, it’s razored teeth unhinging and unleashing a heinous shriek. He closed his ears off with his hands, eyes clenching shut and body doubled over as if to protect himself. It only lasted a moment before it was silent again, only a residue of tenuous ringing from the blaring sound.

Kuroo felt numb, not even feeling himself turn around and drag himself over to the kitchen where he followed Daichi’s voice. Part of him wanted to stop and run away, believing it was all just a trick and it was really just his _other friend_ waiting for him there.  

It was a safe zone, however. Daichi was leaned against the kitchen counter, phone held up against his ear and features contorted into a vast range of negative emotions. Smoke wafted up from the cigarette held between his fingers and he glanced up upon noticing Kuroo’s presence. He was stressed, clearly. There was at least a dozen cigarette butts in the ashtray, all having been smoked in the space of a short amount of time.

“Okay, I’ll see you in a bit, bye.” He cut off the phone and tried for a smile towards Kuroo, the curl of his lips tragically sad more than anything. “Hey, you managed to get some sleep?”

“Uh-huh…” Kuroo sounded, unable to feel his face or lips to tell if he was able to even speak and settled with just staring into an empty space. Daichi noticed how far away Kuroo seemed and furrowed his brows in concern. He moved forward and opened his mouth to speak, but stopped short as he caught the smeared red down Kuroo’s neck.

Daichi dragged out a chair from the table and hurriedly pointed towards it. “Fuck— fuck, what— sit now, let me look.”

Kuroo obliged wordlessly, catching how Daichi rubbed at his scabbing wound on his neck and feeling the guilt drown him all over again. He swallowed down the need to cry and dragged his feet across the kitchen, dumping himself down on the chair. “It… I just woke up and… the mirror—”

Then, Daichi was kneeling in front of him, already wiping the tears with his thumbs that Kuroo didn’t even realized he let free like that. Daichi had never seen Kuroo look in such a state, his former golden glowing skin ashed to bone, visage gaunt and bleak gaze with nothing but a vacant room behind them. It took everything he had not to cry with Kuroo, and he mustered up the strength from anywhere possible.

“Hey, I know this is a lot to ask you… I’m not telling you not to be scared because fuck, I know that’s impossible right now but—” he paused, pursing his lips together as he searched for words. “But… I need you to trust me again… Please Tetsu, I need you to trust me because while you still have me it’s gonna make that fucker’s time harder, understand? It’s feeding off your fear and isolation, the lonelier you feel the more it will do _this_ to you. You can’t let it win, okay? I need you to trust me— and I know I already let you down… Please, give me another chance.”

Kuroo needed to give him that chance, or that _thing_ would most definitelyget in. Daichi didn’t want to think that far ahead, but he was already back into work mode again.

“But you said—”

“I know what I said,” Daichi hissed, angry at himself more than anyone could imagine. “I was wrong, I couldn’t sense it— I don’t know how or why but Suga’s gonna help, okay?” He grabbed Kuroo’s cold hands, never breaking that eye contact. “Do you trust me?”

Kuroo stared for a moment, feeling like those words were nothing but a drone, but there was a glimmer of hope somewhere in there, there was hope he wasn’t losing his shit. “So… I’m not going crazy?”

“No,” Daichi assured, watching the relief tug at the edges of Kuroo’s countenance. “It’s real, and I’m sorry I didn’t listen earlier.”

“About Sendai…”

“I’m not going,” he stated hurriedly. “Ukai knows, so does Suga. Ukai’s gonna go do some bidding to get someone else, Suga is going to help me identify… what this is.”

Kuroo shamelessly assumed Daichi just knew everything and anything, so the statement came as a bit of a surprise. “Uh, you _don’t_ know what it is?”

He could feel it for sure since the night before, and no doubt it was something demonic— the problem, however, was that it was far more bloodthirsty and malice than anything he had come across before, it wasn’t a standard classed demon he could easily do a clean up of like he normally did. Just their luck. “Not gonna lie to you, it’s a nasty piece of shit we got here.”

“Ah, right,” Kuroo said simply, nodding at the fact he was likely fucked.

“Hey, that doesn’t mean we can’t kick it’s ass,” Daichi reminded, giving Kuroo a reassuring smile as he held onto his hand. Kuroo smiled back, a soft smile with a light Daichi hadn’t seen in what felt like such a long time. His eyes fell to Kuroo’s hand in his, noticing the charcoal blackening of the tips his fingers and dried old blood smeared over his skin. Reluctantly, Daichi looked back up.

Those warm eyes ceased to exist, the whites bloodshot and the amber iced off and clouded over with a milky film, skin cracked and blanched into a deathly wan. The blood ran from his eyes, nose and mouth, pallid lips parting in a grin with those blood and ink stained teeth.

Daichi startled backwards, letting go of Kuroo’s hand and meeting painfully with the wall behind him. Kuroo reached for him, totally perplexed by that reaction and concerned for the utter horror painted over Daichi’s mien. “Daichi?”

There his face was, the man he loved and not a monster, those wavering warm antique pools staring at him expectantly laced with perturbed worry. Daichi reached to touched his cheek, hands trembling, body numb. “Think my superpower is working for sure now…”

“Your superpower seems a little shit if I’m honest,” Kuroo quipped, smiling gently.

Daichi laughed, feeling a burn in his eyes before realizing he was crying. Kuroo wrapped his arms around him, his breaths soft upon his head as he held him close and Daichi rambled dozens of spluttering sorry’s.

“It’s okay, Dai. Because I trust you.”

Those words seemed to vanquish the darkness, even for just a little moment, but it was enough to see the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daichi, better get rid of all the knives :)  
> Comments are always very much appreciated, many thanks for reading <3

**Author's Note:**

> I say I'll weekly update everything but I'm awful at sticking to plans. I'll say this time I'll TRY to weekly update, but more likely it'll be updated on no fixed day until I find a good routine.


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